Device support in Microchip Studio is done using the concept of device family packs. The format is inspired by the Keil® CMSIS-Pack specification, and packs containing Arm devices are fully compatible with the Keil CMSIS-Pack specification. For AVR and AVR32 packs, some Microchip specific extensions to the format have been implemented.
CMSIS-Pack describes a couple of use cases, and the packs used in Microchip Studio to provide device support is part of the Device Family Pack (DFP) use case. This pack contains all needed files to support compilation, programming, and debugging of a device. For more information about the CMSIS-Pack specification, visit www.keil.com/pack/doc/CMSIS/Pack/html/index.html.
Microchip Studio includes a tool to manage packs, called Pack Manager. It is available in the Tools menu in Microchip Studio and gives the ability to install, remove, and list information related to packs.