Press Release: Microchip Technology Unveils PICDEM Touch Sense 1 Demonstration Board - Electronics Design, Strategy, News

Microchip Technology Unveils PICDEM Touch Sense 1 Demonstration Board

Microchip Technology Inc.

(Product Announcements, 27/2/2008)

Microchip Technology Inc., a leading provider of microcontroller and analog semiconductors, has announced the PICDEM Touch Sense 1 Demo Board (Part # DM164125) for capacitive touch-sensing applications. The easy-to-use board comes with a PICkit Serial Analyzer and the royalty-free mTouch Sensing Solution Software Development Kit (SDK). Together, the board and supporting materials provide a complete platform for implementing capacitive touch-sensing interfaces using the highly integrated, cost-effective 8-bit Flash PIC microcontrollers.

Many applications in the consumer, appliance and medical markets now employ capacitive touch-sensing technology for reasons such as aesthetics, maintenance, cost and cleanliness.

The PICDEM Touch Sense 1 Demo Board is yet another high-quality, robust product from Microchip for implementing this leading-edge user interface. Equipped with capacitive touch-sensing keys and sliders, the board enables designers to evaluate capacitive touch sensing in their applications using the PICkit Serial Analyzer and Windows-based mTouch Diagnostic Tool, an easy-to-use Graphical User Interface (GUI) that is included in the mTouch Sensing Solution SDK. Libraries, source code and other support materials that come with the board further shorten development time and reduce design costs.

"Microchip is committed to making it easy and inexpensive for engineers to implement capacitive touch-sensing interfaces into their designs," said Steve Drehobl, vice president of Microchip's Security, Microcontroller and Technology Development Division. "Expect to see more touch-sensing products and mTouch sensing solutions from Microchip in the near future."

Board Pricing & Availability
The PICDEM Touch Sense 1 demo board (Part # DM164125) can be purchased at www.microchipdirect.com today. This price includes the PICkit Serial Analyzer (Part # DV164122) and mTouch Sensing Solution SDK.

For further information, contact any Microchip sales representative or authorized worldwide distributor, or visit www.microchip.com/mtouch.

Microchip Customer Support
Microchip is committed to supporting its customers by helping design engineers develop products faster and more efficiently. Customers can access four main service areas at www.microchip.com.

The Support area provides a fast way to get questions answered; the Sample area offers free evaluation samples of any Microchip device; microchipDIRECT provides 24-hour pricing, ordering, inventory and credit for convenient purchasing of all Microchip devices and development tools; finally, the Training area educates customers through webinars, sign-ups for local seminar and workshop courses, and information about the annual MASTERs events held throughout the world.