Performance tests continue to show best-in-class performance for the PIC32, as recently published in the EEMBC CoreMark™ and Dhrystone benchmarks. The new families add to the PIC32's leading performance with up to 128KB of RAM and extensive connectivity options, including 10/100Mbit/s Ethernet, two CAN2.0b controllers, USB Host and Device, and OTG, as well as six UART ports, five I2C™ ports, and four SPI ports. The integrated 100Mbit/s Ethernet MAC uses a standard RMII/MII interface to low-cost Physical Interface (PHY) chips, while the CAN and USB modules incorporate a DMA interface to maximize data transfer.
Microchip offers free TCP/IP and USB software stacks, including full source code, to further facilitate software development, accelerate time to market, and reduce total cost of ownership. The available software includes two TCP/IP software stacks, as well as libraries for USB Host and Device, AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) encryption, multiple file systems, advanced graphics, audio, and many other software products.
Adopting the software across the entire Microchip PIC® 600-plus 8-, 16-, and 32-bit microcontroller portfolio is straightforward, as its development tools, USB stacks, and TCP/IP stacks cover the entire PIC microcontroller range. Furthermore, the new PIC32MX5/6/7 families have pinouts compatible with the existing USB microcontroller families: PIC32 and PIC24F.
The new PIC32 Ethernet Starter Kit (part number DM320004, $72) is designed to enable easy Ethernet development, and the PIC32 USB Starter Kit II (part number DM320003-2, $55) is an upgrade for the new families of Microchip's existing USB Starter Kit. Owners of the Explorer 16 Development Board (reference number DM240001) can purchase a plug-in module for developing the PIC32MX5/6/7 families (reference number MA320003) for $25.