Microchip Technology MA240020 Data Sheet

16-bit Embedded Control Solutions

Energy conservation is becoming essential for the growing 

number of electronic applications. Many require low 

power and, in extreme cases, need to be able to run for 

up to 15–20 years from a single battery. Products with 

Microchip’s eXtreme Low Power (XLP) technology offer 

the industry’s lowest currents for sleep, where most 

applications spend 90–99% of their time. These devices 

are ideal for a variety of applications including portable 

medical devices, thermostats, energy monitoring, wireless 

sensors, energy harvesting and security.

   

■

eXtreme Low Power (XLP)—the benchmark in low power
•    Down to 10 nA in Deep Sleep 
•    As low as 400 nA with RTCC active

   

■

Fast wake-up from Deep Sleep
•    Minimizes CPU run time
•    Flexible wake-up sources

   

■

Effi cient instruction set; 90% single-cycle instruction
•    Active mode currents as low as 150 µA/MHz
•    CoreMark/MHz of 1.88, 12.53 CoreMark/mA

The XLP Battery Life Estimator is a free software utility 

to aid you in developing low-power applications. The tool 

estimates average current consumption and battery 

life. The utility allows users to select the target device, 

battery type, the application’s operating conditions 

(such as voltage and temperature) and model the active 

and power-down times for their application. The tool 

comes pre-loaded with specifications of Microchip’s PIC 

microcontrollerss featuring nanoWatt XLP technology and 

commonly used batteries in embedded applications.

   

■

AN1416: Low Power Design Guide:  A single source for 

   

■

AN1267: nanoWatt XLP Technology:  An Introduction to 

Microchip’s Low-Power Devices 

The XLP 16-bit Development Board is 

designed with eXtreme Low Power in 

mind. Designed as a true platform for low-

power development, it enables designs 

with sleep currents as low as 10 nA. The 

board is suitable for prototyping many low-

power applications including RF sensors, data loggers, 

temperature sensors, electronic door locks, metering 

sensors, remote controls, security sensors, smart cards 

and energy harvesting. The PICtail™ interface supports 

Microchip’s extensive line of daughter cards for easy 

evaluation of your next low-power application.

This add-on board fills the need for low-power 

monitoring and debugging. Breakpoints indicate 

when current exceeds a specified threshold and 

provides a graph of current, voltage and time versus 

code execution. It also uses time-stamping with 

100 ns resolution to find large current codes.

PIC24F16KL402

4–16

14/20/28

30

–

210

690

150

PIC24FJ64GB004

32–64

28/44

200

20

200

500

250

PIC24FJ128GA310

64–128

64/100

330

10

270

400

150

PIC24FJ128GC010

64–128

64/100

330

10

270

400

150