PIC18 Q10 Product Family – PIC® MCUs for Closed-loop Control

16 June, 2018

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Real-time control systems usually are closed-loop control systems where one has a tight time window to gather data, process that data, and update the system. If the time window is missed, then the stability of the system is degraded. This reduced control can be catastrophic to some applications, such as power conversion and advanced motor control. Many semiconductor companies are claiming their MCUs can support real-time control applications, but they don’t usually offer an accurate real-time control system. Microchip has unveiled a new PIC18 Q10 family featuring multiple intelligent Core Independent Peripherals (CIPs) that help designers to simplify development and enable quick response time to system events.

Microchip which in 2016 acquired Atmel, the company famously known for the Atmega 328P, the microcontroller behind the Arduino Uno has launched a set of microcontrollers that are tailored for real-time control system called the PIC18 Q10 Family of Microcontrollers. The new family is designed for a robust system with intelligent analog, configurable peripherals and operates at 5V, making it ideal for noise prone applications because 5V offers more noise immunity as compared to 3.3V MCUs.

The PIC18 Q10 family of MCUs features CIP (Core Independent Peripherals) that provide the ability to accomplish tasks in hardware while freeing up the Central Processing Unit (CPU) to do other tasks or go to sleep to save power. The hardware-based peripherals offload timing-critical and core-intensive functions from the CPU, allowing it to focus on more complex functions within the system. This decreases system complexity by eliminating additional code and external components, reduces power consumption, allowing for deterministic response time as well as decreased validation time.

The family is made up of about seven different MCUs all coming in different package type from DIP to a QFN, making it ideal for space-constrained closed-loop control system while still applicable for hobbyist and enthusiast by leveraging on the DIP package version. The products offer Intelligent Analog peripherals including Zero Cross Detect (ZCD), on-chip comparators and a 10-bit ADC with Computation (ADC²) automating Capacitive Voltage Divider (CVD) techniques for advanced touch sensing, averaging, filtering, oversampling and automatic threshold comparison.

These are some of the PIC18 Q10 Key attributes to take note off:

64 MHz internal oscillator
Up to 128 KB Flash program memory
Up to 1 KB data EEPROM
Up to 3615 B data SRAM
10-bit ADC² (ADC with Computation), up to 35 channels
Four 16-bit timers
Complementary Waveform Generator (CWG)
Two comparators
Zero Cross Detect (ZCD)
Windowed Watch Dog Timer (WWDT)
Peripheral Pin Select (PPS)
Data Signal Modulator (DSM)
Up to 8 Configurable Logic Cells (CLC)
5-bit DAC
EUSART, SPI, and I²C
Available in 28-, 40- and 44-pins

The PIC18 Q10 family can be used with the curiosity development boards which are cost-effective MCU development platforms and can be used to accelerate the development of the MCUs family. The family is also supported by MPLAB® Code Configurator (MCC), a free software plug-in that provides a graphical interface to configure peripherals and functions specific to your application.

Based on its overwhelming featuers, the PIC18 Q10 family is suited for a broad range of applications including industrial control, consumer, automotive, touch sensing, advanced motor control, and the Internet of Things (IoT). More information about the product family can be found on the product page.

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