Microchip announces the expansion of its stand-alone Real-Time Clock/Calendar (RTCC) portfolio with the new 10-pin, SPI MCP795XX family. These new devices offer many of the same features as the larger 14-pin MCP795WXX family, including superior timekeeping performance. Reducing overall component count in the system and eliminating the user programming costs for a serial ID make the MCP795XX RTCC family an ideal choice for the handheld, wireless and consumer markets. By including 64 bytes of SRAM, 2 Kbits of EEPROM and a 128-bit Unique ID, which can be ordered blank or preprogrammed with a MAC address, extra memory devices may not be needed. Utility power meters, manufacturing equipment, radios, GPS and hospital instrumentation applications, which need accurate time over a broad temperature range, will also benefit from the very wide digital trimming range, which can compensate up to 22 seconds per day of crystal frequency drift.
Digital trimming improves the timekeeping accuracy of RTCCs, and a wide digital trimming range provides customers with high accuracy over a large temperature range. Accurate timekeeping is also supported at a lower power-consumption level, because digital trimming is maintained when the MCP795XX is operating from backup power on the VBAT input. Additionally, these devices join the industry’s only portfolio to offer a battery-backed RTCC with both power-fail and power-restore timestamps, plus three types of non-volatile memory: EEPROM, SRAM and a Unique ID.
The MCP795XX family can log the time and duration of power failures, without any additional circuitry, by using the on-chip power-fail timestamp feature which is not offered by any other SPI RTCC on the market. Applications in which long battery life is at a premium, such as wireless, portable communications, security and automotive, can also benefit from the 5 MHz SPI bus and millisecond alarm. This high-resolution alarm output provides a greater degree of control over the duty cycle needed to support longer MCU sleep and power-down modes. All six members of the MCP795XX family are available in 10-pin MSOP and TDFN packages, and are available today for sampling.
