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Comprehensive Solutions for Touch Sensing


Core-independent touch dsPIC33 DSCs offer leading-edge capacitive touch sensing performance with robustness, water and moisture rejection, immunity for conducted noise, functional safety readiness (ISO 26262, IEC 61508 and IEC 60730) and security.

Capacitive Touch Sensing Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs)

We offer the ISO26262 Functional Safety Touch packages for Core-Independent Touch DSCs to enable you to develop automotive safety-compliant touch applications. Below are the highlights of the ISO26262 Functional Safety Touch packages*.

  • ASIL-B and ASPICE L1-compliant functional safety touch library
  • Functional Safety Manual
  • Functional safety touch reference application with user’s guide
  • Functional safety library integration guide
  • Statis and dynamic code reports (Advanced package)
  • Safety analysis reports

* Functional Safety packages for diagnostics for the dsPIC33C DSCs must be purchased separately.

Functional Safety Touch Packages

Capacitive Touch Sensing Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs)

Touch Features of dsPIC33 DSCs

  • Self-sensing
  • Mutual sensing*
  • Driven Shield and Driven Shield+ modes for state-of-the-art water tolerance
  • Ready-to-use touch libraries in MPLAB® Code Configurator (MCC)
  • ASIL-B and ASPICE-compliant safety touch library packages
  • ISO 26262 and IEC 61508 functional safety packages for DSCs
  • Boost mode to increase sensing speed and/or increase SNR*
  • Automotive qualified for silicon, robustness, noise sustainability and emissions

Target Use Cases

Leverage our MCC Touch Library to integrate touch features and address a variety of use cases, including: 

  • Buttons, sliders and wheels (out of the box from MCC)
  • Level sensing
  • Hands-Off Detection (HOD) with or without heating
  • Proximity sensing
  • Touchpads with surface gestures

*Contact Microchip Sales

 

Multiple Touch Button Use Cases

Integrated Touch Controller (ITC) on dsPIC33A DSCs

Highlights:

  • ITC is a hardware engine that executes the command sequences on the sensor inputs
  • A flexible and fully independent hardware engine for Capacitive Voltage Divider (CVD) measurements
  • Out-of-the-box hardcoded touch sequences for beginners
  • User-defined custom capacitive sensing sequence for advanced innovative designs
  • Configurable capacitor array for obtaining maximum touch sensitivity
  • Wide range of touch-triggering sources
  • Up to 64 conversion records and up to three conversion lists

 

Peripheral Trigger Generator (PTG) on dsPIC33C DSCs

Highlights:

  • PTG is a user-programmable sequencer automating CVD sequencing and measurements
  • PTG coordinates with Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) via Direct Memory Access (DMA) to execute the touch sample acquisition stage without CPU intervention
  • Step queue with 32 entries to store step commands

Find the Right dsPIC33 DSC For Your Design


Getting Started With Capacitive Touch Sensing Designs Has Never Been Easier


Our sophisticated and user-friendly touch ecosystem covers all Microchip MCUs to bring your touch design from a concept to a final product quickly and smoothly. Complete your touch design in a few simple steps:

  1. Choose the right core-independent touch dsPIC33 DSC for your application from the parametric chart above.
  2. Use MPLAB Code Configurator (MCC) to configure drivers and libraries and generate touch code specific to the selected device. Download the MCC here
  3. Create a project, import code, build and compile the application using MPLAB X Integrated Development Environament (IDE) and the MPLAB XC-DSC compiler.
  4. Troubleshoot runtime behavior and tune the output parameters as necessary with the help of MPLAB Data Visualizer.

The touch ecosystem and library APIs remain the same across device families, including PIC®, AVR® and SAM MCUs and dsPIC® DSCs, to seamlessly migrate based on system requirements.

Note: Touch library for dsPIC33A will be rolling out soon in MCC. Contact us to get early access

Automotive Electronic Control Unit (ECU) Demonstration Application


This demo application showcases the use of high-performance, real-time dsPIC33C DSCs to meet the security and AUTOSAR requirements and implement a variety of automotive ECU functions.

Documents and Resources


Title
Capacitive Touch Sensor Design Download
Implementing Metal Over Capacitive Touch Sensors Download
Getting Started with Dual Core Download
Layout and Physical Design Guidelines for Capacitive Sensing Download

dsPIC DSCs: Your Solution to Overcome Various Touch-Sensing Challenges

Learn how Microchip’s dsPIC33 Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs) with core-independent touch address the challenges of implementing robust capacitive touch-sensing designs in automotive and industrial applications that require precision touch, faster response, robustness, functional safety and security.