The nanoWatt XLP line of 8- and 16-bit microcontrollers from Microchip reduces power draw to 20 nA when sleeping in its lowest-power mode. The eXtreme Low Power (XLP) technology supports a range of sleep modes including a 400-nA watchdog and 500-nA real-time clock mode. These chips are designed for use in sealed battery and energy-harvesting applications. The 16-bit PIC24F16KA family includes EEPROM memory and comes in small-footprint and low-pin-count (20- and 28-pin) versions. The 8-bit PIC18F46J11 has up to 64 kbytes of flash memory, while the PIC18F46J50 devices add integrated Full-Speed USB 2.0 support. Pricing for the PIC18F46J50 starts at $1.78. The price of the 16-bit PIC24F16KA family starts at $1.38. Development boards like the PIC18 Explorer are available, and they work with the MPLAB ICD 3 in-circuit debugger and the MPLAB integrated development environment, which includes a free C compiler.
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