June 15, 2009 — Microchip Technology announced MPLAB Starter Kit for PIC24H MCUs, which includes everything needed to develop and evaluate Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs) and intelligent sensor processing for embedded designs, at the low cost of $59.98. The kit is based on the PIC24HJ128GP504 16-bit microcontroller (MCU), which features up to 40 MIPS performance, 128 Kbytes of Flash, 8 Kbytes of RAM and a full complement of integrated peripherals. For advanced HMIs, the kit includes an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) array display that is supported by the free Microchip Graphics Library, low-cost audio and speech playback capability for user prompts, and user-input capabilities.
For intelligent sensor processing development, the Starter Kit board has a tri-axial analog accelerometer interfaced to the PIC24H, along with example applications such as motion-sensitive gaming. The kit is available today online, under part number DM240021.Embedded control requires more performance to support features such as sophisticated HMIs, which are being added to a broader range of products. The MPLAB Starter Kit for PIC24H MCUs provides a simple and easy-to-use tool for quickly developing HMIs in deeply embedded, low-cost applications.Embedded designers are also finding that increasing requirements to add active intelligence and functionality to sensing and measurement applications make higher performance microcontrollers with precise responsiveness very desirable.
Additionally, these intelligent sensing applications demand advanced processing out at the sensor or sensor cluster. The MPLAB Starter Kit for PIC24H MCUs helps solve these challenges by including a tri-axial analog accelerometer sensor and the circuitry to interface to additional external sensors. The kit also provides sensor interface software.The MPLAB Starter Kit for PIC24H MCUs allows developers to run the included accelerometer-based sample programs, and check out the interaction of the accelerometer and the switches with the MCU on the visual display, while listening to speech playback. Users can connect their own analog sensors for signal processing, and can download and test their own applications.
Additional key features of the MPLAB Starter Kit for PIC24H MCUs include:
- Integrated debugger/programmer
- USB powered
- 128x64 OLED display and onboard speaker
- Low-cost speech playback via G.711 compression
- Two switches for application utility
- Separate analog conditioning circuitry to plug in wide range of sensors for sensor signal processing
- CD with Microchip’s MPLAB® Integrated Development Environment, including a full editor, programmer and debugger; MPLAB C compiler; code examples and user’s guide
