CCS News

Microchip created the Microchip Technology Consultant Program to assist with customer designs using PIC^® MCU microcontrollers and other Microchip digital signal controls, analog ICs, and serial EEPROMs. To meet the growing market demand for embedded systems design and electronics design expertise, companies rely on Microchip Consultants to provide technical solutions and support.

Members of the Authorized Consultant Program must participate in a rigorous interview process, meet several design qualifications, and maintain a standard of quality and excellence while utilizing products from Microchip.

Are you an Authorized Consultant? Please contact Microchip to see if you qualify for a discount on CCS products. For a list of all Authorized Microchip Consultants, visit www.microchip.com/consultants

Contact CCS, Inc. about our own engineering services.

CCS has designed a new prototyping board focused on the new Ethernet chip from Microchip, the ENC28J60. The ENC28J60 is an SPI controlled, 10Mbit/sec, full duplex Ethernet transceiver IC. The Embedded Ethernet prototyping board includes many features our customers have come to love from our other development boards: a potentiometer, a push-button, 3 user-controlled LEDs, an RS232 level converter and a header for easy access to all I/O on the included PIC18F4520. It also has a LCD, a serial EEPROM, and a MMC/SD card reader. Support, such as drivers and example TCP/IP code for the ENC28J60, is available to CCS customers using the CCS C Compiler.

Please email support to request the drivers and code for ENC28J60.

CCS is proud to support the PIC12F683 from Microchip. Our new prototyping board will replace the PIC12F675 and be pin-for-pin compatible. The new PIC12F683 board features the 8 pin PIC12F683 chip and its ICD version that supports debugging. This Low Pin-count (8) PIC^® Flash microcontroller offers on-chip EEPROM Data Memory, nanoWatt Technology, an analog comparator module with a single comparator, and a programmable on-chip voltage reference. This chip also comes with a Precision internal oscillator, software selectable BOR, and extended WDT.

These boards will be available in a Development kit (with or without software) and as a board-only kit.
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Check out CCS in the the latest 8-Bit Embedded Resource Catalog by Extension Media. This is the third year in a row that CCS has participated in this publication, along with Microchip. Please visit their website to view the publication if you are not on their mailing list: www.extensionmedia.com/8bit

CCS offers several mailing lists to keep you up to date on CCS news and software.

Receive an email notification when:

1. A new version of the CCS C Compiler has been released
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To receive notification when your maintenance is about to expiring, please send an email. Please provide your customer number or reference number if you have it. We will be happy to add you.

Starting the week of December 5, 2005, Microchip will be hosting a workshop series about power supply design. Engineers may attend and learn how to incorporate microcontrollers in their designs. They will learn about interfacing traditional analog power supply designs with microcontrollers and the advantages of digital monitoring and control within a design.

Microchip chose the CCS C Compiler "due to its ease of use and convenient built-in functions." Also, because Microchip feels it is less complicated and confusing than other C Compilers, attendees will be able to "concentrate on the concepts and less on the syntax of C."

CCS is delighted to grow our relationship with Microchip by supplying the compilers for the entire series of workshops.

Parallax, known for the BASIC Stamp, is now the exclusive supplier of the SX chip. CCS has partnered with Parallax to provide an optimized and robust SX C compiler. Parallax will offer development boards and debugging tools that will work in conjunction with the CCS SX compiler. For additional information and ordering options, please visit the Parallax website. The compiler will be available in December 2005.

DLP Designs has developed USB Data Acquisition Boards that teach a user how to interface to FTDI's FT232BM USB-UART IC using small microcontrollers and simple RS232-like commands.

CCS has made this easy for the C programmer by offering a special limited PCW compiler to accompany the board at a great low price. This package is sold exclusively at Mouser Electronics (Mouser Part # 626-DLP2232PB-CCS).

The CCS Real Time Operating System (RTOS) allows a PIC® microcontroller to define and run regularly scheduled tasks. This is accomplished by a dispatcher built at compile time through the preprocessor directives to define tasks. This provides a cooperative multi-tasking RTOS. However, due to the practical limitations of the PIC, it does not offer preemptive scheduling.

In the manual/help file, see the preprocessor directives #USE RTOS and #TASK as well as the RTOS built-in functions.

Note: RTOS was released in version 3.20 of PCW or PCWH. If you want to update your compiler please call 262-522-3500 x35 to purchase maintenance or access your account and purchase online.

CCS is leading the way in wireless development. Look for our new Wireless Development Kit – ZMD Edition later this year.

This kit allows for development of wireless devices that are IEEE 802.15.4 compliant. The heart of the ZMD Wireless prototyping board contains the ZMD44102 transceiver, which is 900 Mhz and can transmit up to 100 meters.

Source code is provided to customize wireless applications such as energy management, remote metering and control, home and building control, industrial networks, two-way remote keyless entry, and health monitoring networking.

Standard protocol stacks will be available and ready to compile with the CCS C Compiler in December. Visit our news page over the next few months for updates on the release date of our ZMD Wireless Development Kit.