3.2 Documentation and Relevant Links

  • Curiosity products: The next embedded design idea has a new home. Curiosity is a cost-effective, fully integrated 8-bit development platform targeted at first-time users, makers, and those seeking a feature-rich rapid prototyping board. Designed from the ground-up to take full advantage of Microchip’s MPLAB X development environment, Curiosity includes an integrated programmer/debugger, and requires no additional hardware.
  • Xplained products: Xplained evaluation kits are a series of easy-to-use evaluation kits for Microchip microcontrollers and other Microchip products.
    • Xplained Nano – used for low pin count devices that provides a minimalistic solution with access to all I/O pins of the target microcontroller.
    • Xplained Mini – used for medium pin count devices that adds an Arduino Uno compatible header footprint and a prototyping area.
    • Xplained Pro – used for medium-to-high pin count devices that feature advanced debugging and standardized extensions for peripheral functions.
    Note: All the above kits have on-board programmers/debuggers, which creates a set of low-cost boards for evaluation and demonstration of features and capabilities of different Microchip products.

Software / IDE

  • MPLAB® X IDE: MPLAB X IDE is a software program that runs on a PC (Windows®, Mac OS®, Linux®) to develop applications for Microchip microcontrollers and digital signal controllers. It is called an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) because it provides a single integrated “environment” to develop code for embedded microcontrollers.
  • MPLAB® Code Configurator: MPLAB Code Configurator (MCC) is a free, graphical programming environment that generates seamless, easy-to-understand C code to be inserted into the project. Using an intuitive interface, it enables and configures a rich set of peripherals and functions specific to the application.
  • MPLAB® Harmony v3: MPLAB® Harmony v3 is a fully integrated embedded software development framework that provides flexible and interoperable software modules that allow the users to dedicate their resources to creating applications for the 32-bit PIC® and SAM devices, rather than dealing with device details, complex protocols and library integration challenges. It works seamlessly with MPLAB X Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and the MPLAB® XC32 Compiler to enable a smooth transition and maximum code reuse between PIC32 MCUs, SAM MCUs and MPUs.

    MPLAB Harmony v3 has drivers, demo code, and Data Visualizer that supports data streaming and advanced debugging.

  • Atmel Start: Atmel START is an online tool that helps the user to select and configure software components, and tailor the embedded application in a usable and optimized manner.
  • Atmel Studio: Free IDE for the development of C/C++ and assembler code for microcontrollers.
  • Data Visualizer: Data Visualizer is a program used for processing and visualizing data. The Data Visualizer can receive data from various sources such as the EDBG Data Gateway Interface found on Curiosity Nano, Xplained Pro boards and COM ports.
  • Design documentation: The package containing CAD source, schematics, BOM, assembly drawings, 3D plots, layer plots, etc.
  • Hardware user’s guide: The PDF version of this user’s guide.
  • Curiosity Nano Touch Adapter: The kit webpage.
  • Curiosity Nano Pin Configuration: The Curiosity Nano microcontroller and touch extension kits pin details.

Turnkey Touch Devkits