Microchip expands radiation-tolerant MCU family

As space exploration and deployments heat up, demand for electronic components able to survive harsh environments and meet stringent radiation immunity and reliability requirements is rapidly growing. Microchip Technology Inc. has announced the SAMD21RT, a new radiation-tolerant (RT) Arm Cortex-M0+ based 32-bit microcontroller (MCU).

(Source: Microchip Technology Inc.)

The radiation-tolerant MCU, housed in a 10 × 10-mm 64-pin ceramic and plastic package with 128-KB Flash and 16-KB SRAM, is suited for space-constrained applications where size and weight are critical. The SAMD21RT provides a high level of radiation tolerance with a total ionizing dose (TID) capability up to 50 krad and single event latch-up (SEL) immunity up to 78 MeV.cm²/mg.

Building on Microchip’s existing family of SAMD21 MCUs, the low-power SAM21RT is based on commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) devices. This simplifies the design process when transitioning to a radiation-tolerant device because the design remains pinout compatible, Microchip said.

The SAMD21RT, running at up to 48 MHz, delivers high-performance processing for harsh environments. The 32-bit MCU integrates analog functions including a 12-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with up to 20 channels, a 10-bit digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and analog comparators.

Other features include six serial communication modules (configurable as UART/USART, SPI or I²C), five 16-bit timer/counters, a 32-bit real-time clock and calendar, 24 PWM channels, full speed USB device and embedded host, support for up to 256 touch channels, and 3-V to 3.63-V power supply. The operating temperature range is −40°C to 125°C.

The SAMD21RT provides idle and standby sleep modes and sleepwalking peripherals. Other peripherals include a 12-channel direct memory access controller (DMAC), a 12-channel event system, various timer/counters for control (TCC), a 32-bit real-time counter (RTC) and a Watchdog timer (WDT).

The SAMD21RT 32-bit MCU is available now in limited sampling. The SAMD21RT 32-bit MCU is supported by the SAM D21 Curiosity Nano Evaluation Kit, MPLAB X Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and MPLAB PICkit 5 in-circuit debugger/programmer.