Pic Microcontroller Targets Passive Keyless Entry

The PIC16F639 from Microchip Technology is a Flash, eight-bit PIC microcontroller with a three-channel transponder analog front end and an integrated KEELOQ cryptographic peripheral. This combination provides a total solution for passive keyless entry (PKE) and other wireless authentication applications. These applications are diverse and range in possibilities from tire-pressure monitoring systems to gate openers — all in a small 20-pin SSOP package.

The three-channel transponder analog front end provides bidirectional LF communication, commonly used in PKE and RFID applications. KEELOQ technology is based on a proprietary, non-linear encryption algorithm that creates a unique transmission on every use, rendering code capture and resend schemes useless. Additional key features of the microcontroller include a precision 8 MHz internal oscillator, up to 3.5 Kbytes of Flash program memory, 128 bytes of RAM, 256 bytes of EEPROM, two analog comparators and programmable antenna tuning.

The PIC microcontroller is available as a 20-pin SSOP package. Samples are available, and volume production is expected in the third quarter. In 10,000-unit quantities, the PIC16F639 is $2.18 each.
Microchip Technology · (480) 792-7200 · www.microchip.com