8-bit Microcontrollers (MCUs) are Smarter, Safer and Stronger Than Ever Before

8-bit MCUs

Not only are 8-bit MCUs useful for your design process, but they are also more popular than ever as they are being applied in the industrial, automotive, medical and consumer goods industries. These adaptable MCUs have remained a primary contender within expanding industries and prove that you can teach an old dog new tricks. 8-bit MCUs remain an integral part of design portfolios because they continue to offer exciting new capabilities and features.

As we have witnessed significant changes in applications develop, our PIC® and AVR® microcontrollers have expanded their wide array of Core Independent Peripherals (CIPs) and on-chip analog to accommodate the growing embedded markets. As a result of Microchip's innovation during this time, we have seen an increase in demand for these 8-bit MCUs. These versatile microcontrollers feature heavily in household appliances, automotive and industrial applications. Some machine learning is also possible on 8-bit MCUs, something that was previously only possible with 32-bit MCUs. We are leading the industry in 8-bit innovation, providing MCUs that are smarter, stronger, safer and easier to use than ever before.

Smarter Than Ever

Alongside our strong range of digital peripherals, we're expanding our range of analog peripherals while making them easy to interconnect. This simplifies your project while reducing the Bill of Materials (BOM) cost. To reduce development time, we offer MCC Melody (MPLAB® Unified Code Configurator), which enables you to focus on your application code. This all means you can get your product to market in less time. We also have improved low power operation and the ability to respond to system changes in real time. These analog peripherals can be configured like any other peripheral; they also can be dynamically reconfigured during runtime, something that discrete analog simply cannot do. They are interconnectable with other peripherals using MCC Melody.

Stronger than ever

Many of these parts go into applications in challenging industries. Our 8-bit MCUs are made to operate in harsh environments. You can choose to reduce power consumption by lowering the operating voltage, or if your application is operating in an environment with significant electrical noise, you can use a higher operating voltage to pull all of the signals out of the noise.

Safer Than Ever

Functional safety-ready MCUs were traditionally only used in automotive applications and it was generally considered the only way for the forte or higher-memory MCUs (16- and 32-bit). Now, other industries are also requiring safety critical functionality—for example, industrial and consumer goods applications/devices. Most of our new 8-bit PIC® and AVR® MCUs can be used in safety-critical applications. As demand for safety-critical systems increases, we offer three packages to help you develop your application with functional safety at the forefront of your mind. We offer functional safety packages for most new PIC and AVR MCUs.

Easier Than Ever

To make your design process and product journey as easy as possible, we offer MCC Melody (MPLAB Unified Code Configurator) Graphical Programming Tool, which makes it easy to work with our wide array of peripherals. MCC Melody gives you a high-level view of the features of the MCU you are working with and makes it easy to configure peripherals while reducing the amount of time spent studying device data sheets. This means you can focus on your application code so that you can get your product to market in less time. MPLAB Discover is a search tool for thousands of code examples, projects and videos. You can download examples for both MPLAB X IDE and MPLAB Xpress cloud-based IDE. With MPLAB Discover, you can filter results by application segment, function, device, required peripheral or feature.

Key Functions and Applications

Our CIPs give developers the option to decide between using integrated analog or discrete analog for their application, giving embedded designers more flexibility. CIPs allow the CPU to operate on other tasks or be put in a lower power (sleep) mode, making PIC and AVR MCUs ideal for battery-powered applications. There are many different purposes in key applications for these MCUs. For example, they are used in the automotive industry in remote keyless entry. In medical applications, our MCUs enable remote health monitoring through analog signal conditioning and advanced sensor functionality. In designs requiring Universal Serial Bus (USB) connectivity, our PIC and AVR MCUs offer full-speed USB functionality. Discover more examples of 8-bit MCU solutions in our brochure.

Use discrete analog when you need superior performance, or in the particular case of operational amplifiers, if you need dual-voltage rails. Use integrated analog if you need to operate in a lower power mode, if you need to reconfigure on the fly or if you need to reduce your BOM cost. It’s all about choosing the right tool for the job at hand.

If you would like to learn more about 8-bit MCUs, view our full discussion with Ross Ayotte and Ross Satchell on Coffee Break S7E1 on LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook. Read our 8-bit MCU brochure and visit our 8-bit MCU page.