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designing with microcontrollers is really fun
I mean, I just love getting me a new dev board, powering it up, hooking up
signals and jumpin right into the code. we just take his data over here run it
through my handy dandy algorithms and put the output over there to control our
wait.. I think I kinda forgot a step back
you see as much fun as the digital and software part is…
we live in an analog world. just about every MCU project
I've ever done has to take the analog signals and then convert them into
digital data before we can jump into my favorite part
but that analog part can be tricky
Hi, I’m Amelia Dalton, host of Chalk Talk
today will be chatting with Alexis Alcott of Microchip
about a new family of MCUs with intelligent analog
that's right they've done all the work for you to get rid of pesky noise and
clean up
well heck why am I telling you about it let's talk to the expert right here
also before we get started remember to click that link
there you can download a free white paper entitled the pic
24 analog design guide thank you so much for joining me today Alexis
thanks for having me! so Alexis, I'm feeling kinda heartbroken now because
the world is in fact not
just zeros and ones it's true it's an analog world out there
it is that think that we see here and interact with are not mean
up zeros and ones after all p.m. in order to be successful today
in fact analog engineers have to be competent digital design and vice versa
through the really different environment out there analog designers are having to
do digital work in digital designers are having to do analog work
hmm and most people aren't having teams I've analog engineers industrial
engineers to work on those separate part the designs anymore
true having to combine those efforts Alexis I have worked with a couple up
those
analog people you mentioned they didn't seem quite like the rest of us
well let's talk about those guys in particular
sure we can do that yeah analog I
they typically care about precision mmm noise immunity
sensors and everything the variable signal
right here as in 10 of somewhere between all the shades of grey
mmm a lot of times they're not as comfortable with the processors and
controllers
yeah so what we try and do it offer them lotsa
example code to start with nice so they never have to start from scratch with
a blank page that scary blank page you can start with them according to strict
the parameters that they need to
okay what about the digital people and more sensible maybe a little more OCD
amber thinking I take offense I am committed back I'll
know it it's all about the zeros and ones for those guys logic programming
all that comes very easy
the analog stuff it seems a little more like black magic through
yet and for these digital focused engineers what we're trying to offer
with these intelligent a lot pic microcontrollers
is all that a lot stuff RT on board nice so we've debugged a lot of the issues
that have to do on the board before
and not although there are components it's just like a another per fro
writing program it the register's just like you could you orders by
very cool but what does this intelligent analog have to do with these groups have
engineers
sends teams are being forced to do more with less what we're trying to do with
these intelligent Alan microcontrollers is
combined both pieces into one product
%ah making easier to wear both those digital and analog
happy fewer yeah I think I have that happen to you
Halloween yes yeah so by combining both the analog and digital
we're hoping that you can save board space simple fire design
and get to market faster fantastic and I'm not sure about that eat I'm story
there but Terps okay we'll move right along it okay so
what does this all mean for me in my design work
well in your divine what you'll be able to do is see that all the analog design
was done by microchip
core although I D but all those noise and communications issues for you
nice and from one platform the next to get very
very consistent in on performance and you won't have to start over
each time you do a new platform brilliant okay
they integration healthy will provide faster data path
lower noise on the system in on the board month mark connections inside the
chip
and in the end you get to market faster with the lower-cost I'm
fantastic everybody loves that Yahoo doesn't mind that
so it seems to me that most of the MC use that I've worked with in the past
have some kind of analog on them
10-bit ADC news and it's true and these parts are a little bit more than just
attended a ***
okay so what you'll see are high precision or very high speed
a to do you think again sixteen-bit sigma-delta right or even a
10-bit a/d or 1230 to deal with 10 mega samples per second
yet more than what you see on a typical micro sure things like tax
op-amp and that the more unique integrated peripherals like
the charge time measurement unit which offers a constant current source
or even a zero crossed attacked that'll help you see when you're AC crosses
through ground
clothes or more innovative unique preferences are what we are considering
these intelligent analog my growth
gotcha okay Lexus can we walk through an example of
what this means in practical terms sure thing
right here youll see a picture love a pic 24g 8306 microcontroller
and that that part that a very popular 1/4 but it doesn't have intelligent a
lot on board
yeah I think I did a chalk talk about this once upon a time yeah
so what you'll see here is the layout about portable censor board
okay a lotta components on a daddys DAX USB
copping out in addition to the microcontroller okay a
so with the discrete solution you have to have all of those
components on your board thats can increase your board five pressure area
also the routing complexity is increased because
to get your signals back and forth between oath chips
you're gonna have to have a signal in addition you have to shield that signal
right right and then you wanna make sure from a board design standpoint your USB
and a TD both are very isolated from each other
you don't have any noise issue yeah so the borderline here can sometimes take
234 spins to get all those noice issues debug
maybe so in in contrast if you swap that out with a new pic 24
GC family micro that has the intelligent analog on board
you can see right away there's quite a bit abort savings
yeah absolutely much smaller on what you can see in the picture as much as that
because it's all integrated on one chip the routing become so much more
easy i right so all those signals before to the eighties USB op-amp all that now
inside the chip yeah saying you're bored define a lot more easy
yeah absolutely now you said we could reduce noise let's talk a black
yet noise reduction so basically when you have a discrete analogue solutions
and purses and intelligent integrated solution
the intelligent integrated solutions gonna give you much easier routing
mmm fewer trace is needed because you don't need to
route to all those external component right the ones you do need to route to
will Ben be shorter
drink this don't need less shielding and overall
PCB board sizes can be much smaller your system cost
ends up being lower yes and your time to market because you need less revisions
quicker perfect absolutely wonderful okay so
a while back you also mentioned increase throughput
now how does that happen sure so to increase the throughput
basically if you're looking at a discrete analogue solution
typically to get to that external a 2d you're using Aspire you are
journals cases in what I can sometimes be a bottleneck
mmm so by integrating out on board your bottlenecks eliminated
now right right right you can read directly from a TD and use that data
immediately
mom impact on some of our products that have DMA
that data is directly transferred into the RAM and you can start your
processing
immediately okay it seems like this would be useful in a lot of different
scenarios button
what kind of applications are you looking for with this
there's a couple applications that were focused on and that we're seeing the
most success in so far
yeah the first is in the portable medical equipment area
things like glucose meters whole box or blood pressure
cuffs I'll we're seeing a lot of success there because I love their need for
high-precision analog
you want very precise measurements in medical applications yeah
and also love these a battery-operated and so you see a benefit with the low
power up somebody's my growth
sure another key area is and fencing
love different kinds of environmental equipment hmm
so lab instrumentation environmental quality sensor
yeah even gas sensors cool okay and then
the final area that we're really focused on is in the area power
so because %uh the high-speed ATT's in the very tight control loops that these
systems enable
these are ideal products for power conversion power measurement
even LED lighting yeah battery charging and things like that
that make sense so you have some specific examples to walk us through
right
I do yes the first one is a pic 24
being used in a smoke detector okay so here what we'll see is at the top part
of a block diagram
we've got the low battery detect okay so
you always wanna know when your smoke detector batteries going out absolutely
hand usually my health around two in the morning hmm
pp and your what you see is ATT's reference to your BD
are your battery source okay and then you're continually measuring that again
sir internal bandgap
that band gap is a constant any change in aided the output value
represents a change in your BD meaning your batteries dying
got yeah you set a certain threshold our trip point
and once you're a TD output goes below that amount your low battery detected go
off
got now on the bottom left part of the diagram what you'll see is your actual
smoke detection
yeah so you're smoked chamber is going to be connected to Mott
of amps on the chip wondering transmit and wondering receive
mmm you got an IR light that the receiver will see
yeah when the smoke detected and basically what happened there
is the output up the op-amp goes into ADD
transmitting any information about when smoke detector
gotcha okay than most importantly on the bottom right at the diagram easier DAC
connected to your beautiful horn broiler cheering and out of the house
alright a do what you must so that was the smoke detector
that next application that I have for you is a glucose meter
cool okay so we talked about the portable medical space and glucose
meters are
a huge area we're seeing a lot of people trying to reduce the cost and
in the meters and the pic 16 8-bit
product with intelligent a lot okay and the
micros being used for I love the front and signal conditioning
and conversion for the glucose meter okay on the left side there you'll see
that test strip
where your glucose sample getting certain yeah and basically it undergoes
a chemical reaction
and electrons are produced the current on the tester changes according to the
glucose concentration
depending on the sample and that current is put into
the op-amp which is utilizes the current to voltage converter
job okay you can internal 8-bit DAC that's used with the internal fixed
voltage reference to supply a voltage bias
onto the op-amp and then you've got an output signal to be fed
to the input the internal 12-bit a/d for conversion okay
so together you've got all the analog integrated on-chip to do a
fairly basic low-cost glucose meter yeah
I C okay couple other things that you'll see here at the EE prom
can be used for storage of them output mmm and the timer can be used in order
to measure
a different time a day or the day of the week so you can do all the trending
and save of that information on the Google strength over time
cool okay got one more example for you today alright
in that area love blood pressure meters okay we actually have a
video love the reference design that microchips created for this type a demo
on our intelligent analog promo page for this example shows
a low-cost blood pressure monitor were a lot love the
peripherals on that pic 24 GC microcontroller years
okay this michael has both a very fast 12-bit a/d as well as a 16-bit
high-resolution a TD on board
no K and the cuff pressure signal and oscillation signal
are both sample by that past 12 in a 2d alright we're using several up the
op-amp
here configured as a high pass filter and
that define uses the 10-bit DAC with a buffered output
to provide an adjustable DC of that level as the bias for the op-amp
okay DC the PTM you that dancer charge time measurement unit
that models used both for that touch something button
as well as the constant current source to the pressure sensor
is the up on the blood pressure cuff okay so as you
squeeze the cup they can get more pressure less pressure
like that you doctors office right overall you get a blood pressure reading
hopefully a good one yes but the
and that data can be displayed on the LCD
we've got an on board LCD controller on the part nothin easy connection
or you can save that date of in memory very cool okay
a couple other her from a chip that could be used for a fancy blood pressure
cuff if you wanted
USB connection for our for data logging
sure yeah or others PWM for output signals
and the spire you are for connecting to wireless models
core see you guys have a big portfolio fancy is how we do
what products include intelligent analog good question
we've got several product families that fall under the intelligent analog
umbrella in fact I think there's over 100 of them today while
and they all map into different market segments depending on that type love
analog peripherals that are integrated okay so at that
top left you can see them medical industrial paper products and those are
some examples we just talked through
with the GC family and the KM over on the right hand side
in the summer the DF pic products that map into
the advance motor control and power Spaeth men in the bottom two categories
in the lower cost arena you'll see more about pic 16 for 8-bit microcontrollers
that map into
low-cost LED lighting and motor control applications
gotcher okay so Alexis at do all of those parts have the same amount
love analog integration good question no in fact
scales by the complexity of the product are okay
so what you can see here is that at the bottom of the chart you'll see some
other pic 16
that we have with a really low and ad's but integrated op-amp
I okay okay and then that skill up over into the pic 24 hours and DS
pics all the way up to our flagship product in the pic 24 GC
that has multiple ladies and add them no more a lot content that we've ever had
on a pic micro before
Wow okay I think I got it now it seems like the GC family has the most
intelligent analog integration I wanna know more about that one
you have the GC it definitely has the most so what you'll see is in the analog
section have this block diagram there's a 16-bit sigma-delta a/d
that has very high dynamic range and high resolution from home
some other applications don't need that much resolution but they just need speed
right so we've also integrated 10 mega sample per second
ultra high-speed 1280 ok or okay
and then the analog is rounded out with pendant DAX
for things like analog control loops from and things like
op amps for analog control loops mic preamp and signal conditioning
and then all the analog components together are connected with an internal
our connections which matrix now okay not switch matrix
allows you more flexibility in connecting different analog outputs to
other analog input
inside the chip that make sense okay Lexus I think I'm ready to get started
well what do I need you got a starter kit for me
of course yeah we've got a low-cost starter kit
it's the pic 24f starter kit for intelligent analog
and right up the middle you'll see the pic 24 GC microcontroller
is the heart of the system and it's connected at the top you'll see that
very
long black header analog header
okay and olive the analog BIOS from the GCR connected cleanly up to that header
for easy prototyping cool yeah sewed board itself has several
sensors integrated for touch light and temperature
mmm but if there's other sensors that you need in your design you can
Parliament about
header and make me off and running developing a prototype brilliant okay
there's also sample code that comes with the board so
you can use that demo code and just kinda make some adjustments and changes
to get your divine up and go on
all right let's wrap up this bad boy recap the main points for me if you
would mind
share so what makes intelligent analog integration so powerful is that we've
done the hard stuff for you
we've eliminated the complicated task debugging north or south
that reduce your signal integrity yes we talked about how
the intelligent analog remove that bottleneck in communication speed
mmm we're trying to provide consistent in a lot performance that you can
leverage from one platform to the next
saving precious design cycle have salute Lee through the
intelligent connections inside the chip were controlling although the analog
components by software
making it much easier yeah and the end result being
smaller board design simplified design cycle
and faster time to market fantastic
well i think thats all I have time for thank you so much for joining me today
Alexis something familiar
before we go remember to click that link there you can download a free white
paper entitled
the pic 24 analog design guide
for TalkTalk I'm Emily adult in for more choc talks
check out the on-demand section e-journal
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