Microchip Released New 8-bit tinyAVR MCUs to Increase Functionality in Sensor Nodes

Published  July 5, 2018   0
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Increase Functionality in Sensor Nodes with New 8-bit tinyAVR® MCUs

ATtiny3217 and ATtiny3216 join Microchip’s tinyAVR family with largest memory in the series

From many years AVR Microcontrollers are used for developing highly responsive sensor nodes, because of cheaper cost and easy to use. Due to increase in demand, Microchip Technology Inc. presented two new devices in its tinyAVR MCU series, with largest memory variant and advance analog features. These new devices enhance the capability and responsiveness of application, mainly designed for reliable operation in harsh environments. Both the devices have inbuilt safety functions which helps to designers to create robust and safe systems.

The ATtiny3217 and ATtiny3216 are ideal for sensor applications and also includes capacitive touch interfaces. These two devices bring the benefit of ADCs (Analog-to-Digital Conversion), which enables the systems to implement touch control together with analog measurements.

“We continue to invest in bringing new AVR MCUs to the market with advanced features that meet our customers’ needs while easing the development process. The combination of responsive touch sensing and built-in safety functions make it easier for designers to improve the user experience in applications such as home appliances, automotive and industrial automation” said Steve Drehobl, vice president of Microchip’s MCU8 division.

Some important features of the ATtiny3217 and ATtiny3216 MCUs includes:

  • Improved Real-time Performance and Accuracy: Dual ADC can be used for synchronous sampling of the analog signals like current and voltage. Additionally, the devices feature a hardware-based Event System that enables inter-peripheral communication without CPU involvement, reducing latency and ensuring faster system response. 
  • Robust and reliable performance: the design also include inbuilt safety function, the Power ON Reset (POR), programmable Brownout Detect (BOD), Voltage Level Monitor (VLM) and Windowed Watchdog Timer (WWDT).
  • Improved noise immunity and functionality in extreme environments:  the devices operates at 5V and withstand at 125℃ of extreme temperature.
  • Increased functionality with more room for application code: it has a 32KB of flash memory, which is enough for the coder to store large application code.

The ATtiny3217 and ATtiny3216 MCUs are assisted by the Atmel Studio7 integrated development (IDE) and the Atmel start code configurator. Microchip’s tinyAVR also includes ATtiny1617 and ATtiny817 which are easy to use and optimized for power efficiency.