Microchip Technology Inc. has announced that all members of its 6-pin PIC10F microcontroller family are available in ultrasmall 2 mm x 3 mm, dual flat no-lead (DFN) packages. In addition, three members of Microchip's 8-pin Baseline PIC microcontroller family are also available in a 2 x 3 DFN, providing additional I/O and functionality with the same footprint.

This 2 x 3 DFN packaging requires 30% less board space than the current SOT-23 and provides designers with a device with reduced height, which is often critical in handheld electronics. Also, these families provide ease of use and fast design development via a simple and easy-to-learn instruction set and inexpensive and simple tools.

Key features of the 6-pin PIC10F200/202/204/206/220/222 and 8-pin PIC12F508/509/510 microcontrollers include an 8-bit analog-to-digital converter, comparators and 256 to 1K instructions (x12-bit program words) of flash program memory. The microcontrollers are well suited for any spaced-constrained application requiring integrated intelligence.

The PIC10F and Baseline PIC microcontroller families are supported by Microchip's development tools, including the free MPLAB integrated development environment software and all of Microchip's programmers. Also the PICkit 2 starter kit (DV164120) makes it easy to get started with their low pin-count microcontrollers.

In RoHS-compliant 2x3 DFN packages, the PIC10F and Baseline PIC microcontrollers are available in sample quantities. Volume production is also available for all six members of the PIC10F family, starting at $0.44 each in 10,000-unit quantities, while the Baseline PIC12F508/12F509/12F510 microcontrollers in 2x3 DFN are expected to become available in volume in the fourth quarter of this year.