September 20, 2010 - Microchip Technology announced the 8-bit PIC18F87J72 microcontroller (MCU) family for single-phase, multi-function smart-metering and energy-monitoring applications. Featuring a dual-channel, high-performance 16-/24-bit Analog Front End (AFE), the MCUs provide an accurate, reliable, easy-to-use and cost-effective solution for developing meters that exceed International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) class 0.5 performance. The family includes 64 or 128 KB Flash program memory and 4 KB RAM, to enable time-of-use and multi-tariff functions, as well as a high level of peripheral integration, including a LCD driver, hardware Real-Time Clock/Calendar (RTCC) and a Charge-Time Measurement Unit (CTMU) that enables a capacitive-touch user interface.
Energy-calculation firmware, a development board and a reference design are available, providing a complete solution that lowers costs and shortens time to market for a variety of smart-metering and energy-monitoring applications.
Development Support
The PIC18F87J72 Single-Phase Energy-Meter Reference Design (Part # ARD00280) can be obtained for evaluation. Featuring a shunt-based single-phase meter with energy-calculation firmware and GUI-assisted software calibration, the reference design enables calculation of active/reactive energy, forward/reverse energy, active/reactive/apparent power and RMS current/Voltage. Customers can reuse or customize the free firmware for their needs, which further shortens time to market and enables them to differentiate their products in the marketplace.
