Microchip dsPIC processors are a very powerful, cost-effective solution (starting at under $2). Technically, they are digital signal controllers; a practical blend of DSP and microcontroller. They provide the capability for audio processing, motor control or general purpose digital signal processing, with 40 MIPS processing power.

For audio applications, they provide DSP capability, codec interfaces (I2S and AC97) and up to 2 on-chip analogue-to-digital converters (1 LSB accuracy, 10-bit @ 1 Msps or 12-bit @ 500 ksps).

For motor control applications, they provide a quadrature encoder interface and sophisticated motor control PWMs. The on-chip motor control PWMs support: Three-Phase AC Induction Motor (ACIM), Switched Reluctance Motor, Brushless DC (BLDC) Motor, Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), Independent Power Factor Correction (PFC) in a motor system, Induction cooking systems, DC motor control systems, Single-phase inverter control, and Single-phase ACIM control.

At Absolute Software, we have all the compilers, tools and debuggers, to make developing a dsPIC into your product simple. Soon after their release, dsPICs became our favourite choice of embedded processor. Here's some of the applications we have used dsPICs for:

• Digital DJ Mixing Desk
• Event recognition on microphonic cable
• Brushless motor control
• Stepper control
• I2C memory emulation
• Smart Card packet sniffing