Read the latest news from the 2008 Embedded Systems Conference, Silicon Valley

Microchip Technology claims to offer the lowest power 16-bit microcontroller which has a standby current of just 100nA.

The chip is included in the PIC24FJ256GB1 microcontroller family unveiled at Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) in San Jose this week. The devices also include an integrated USB 2.0 peripheral and up to 256kbyte flash and 16kbyte RAM on-chip.

Capacitive touch user interface designs are supported by an integrated charge time measurement unit and the supplier's royalty-free mTouch Sensing Solution software development kit.

Software support is provided via free USB class drivers and USB applications. And, the PIC24FJ256GB1 has sufficient code space for advanced applications, while providing up to four UARTs, three SPI ports and thee I2C ports.

All PIC24F family members are supported by Microchip’s development tools, including the MPLAB IDE, the MPLAB C30 C compiler, the MPLAB REAL ICE emulation system, the MPLAB ICD 2 in-circuit debugger, and the MPLAB PM3 universal device programmer.

Owners of the Explorer 16 development board can purchase a $25 USB OTG PIC24F plug-in module (part # MA240014) and a $60.00 USB PICtail Plus Daughter Board (part # AC164131).