The PIC18F “K40” family continues Microchip's longstanding tradition of innovation in 8-bit MCUs by bringing the popular core independent peripherals (CIPs) to the PIC18 product line. These cost-optimized MCUs consist of ten devices ranging from 16 KB to 128 KB of Flash memory with package options covering 28-pins to 64-pins. They are well suited for a broad range of applications and market segments including touch sensing, industrial control, consumer, automotive, and Internet of Things (IoT). The devices include a full complement of core independent peripherals for safety-critical applications (CRC / memory scan, windowed watchdog timer, and hardware limit timer), up to seven hardware PWMs, and multiple communications interfaces. Additionally, the family offers intelligent analog peripherals including zero cross detect (ZCD) constant current I/O, an on-chip comparator, and an ADC with computation (ADC²).

CIPs abstract commonly requested system functions into flexible on-chip hardware modules. This not only increases the PIC18F “K40” family’s throughput and CPU bandwidth, it also enables a significant reduction in software design effort necessary to architect those functions. For example, the ADC² is an intelligent analog-to-digital converter which accelerates the data acquisition and signal analysis functions required in sensor interface applications, such as capacitive touch sensing. The ADC² handles the signal analysis functions of averaging, filtering, oversampling, and automatic threshold comparison independent of the CPU.