If you are developing an application that includes a Controller Area Network (CAN) system, you know that software development can slow you down. You can now change the way you design with CAN using Microchip’s new PIC18 K83 family of microcontrollers (MCUs). These two new devices combine a CAN bus with an extensive array of Core Independent Peripherals (CIPs). You can use these CIPs to increase your system’s capabilities and simplify the creation of your CAN-based applications while avoiding the complexity of added software.

A key advantage of using a PIC18 K83 MCU in your CAN-based system is that the CIPs provide deterministic response to real-time events, shorten design time and can be easily configured through the MPLAB Code Configurator (MCC), a free software plug-in for MPLAB X Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and the cloud-based MPLAB Xpress IDE. It is significantly easier to configure a hardware-based peripheral to accomplish a task instead of writing and validating an entire software routine. The ability to use MCC to configure one of these MCUs with just a few clicks will save considerable time in developing CAN-based applications for the medical, industrial and automotive markets, such as motorized surgical tables, asset tracking, ultrasound machines, automated conveyors and automotive accessories.

The PIC18 K83 devices contain 15 time-saving CIPs. These include Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) with memory scan for ensuring the integrity of nonvolatile memory; Direct Memory Access (DMA) for enabling data transfers between memory and peripherals without CPU involvement; Windowed Watchdog Timer (WWDT) for triggering system resets; 12-bit Analog-to-Digital Converter with Computation (ADC2 ) for automating analog signal analysis for real-time system response; and Complementary Waveform Generator (CWG) for enabling high-efficiency synchronous switching for motor control.

Development Support

The PIC18 K83 family of MCUs is supported by the Curiosity High Pin Count (HPC) Development Board (DM164136).

The PIC18F25K83 comes with 32 KB of Flash memory and the PIC18F26K83 offers 64 KB of Flash memory. Both devices are available in 28-pin SPDIP, SOIC, SSOP, UQFN and QFN packages. They can be ordered today from microchipDIRECT or from Microchip’s worldwide distribution network.