Keith Curtis
Microchip Technology

Microcontrollers, with their remarkable flexibility and programmable nature, are rapidly gaining ground as required components in the design of switching mode power supply designs (SMPS).

In spite of the component's strengths, adding a microcontroller to a SMPS design still usually means adding one or more devices to an already crowded PCB. The new PIC16F785, however, actually reduces the number of devices in a design by including not only the necessary interface peripherals for a SMPS design, but also two channels of analog PWM, two voltage comparators, and two op amps. In this application note, we will examine a typical buck topology intelligent SMPS design using the PIC16F785.