Chandler, Ariz.— Microchip Technology Inc.'s microchipDIRECT e-commerce Web site now provides a "software for sale" download capability for its MCUs. Engineers can purchase Microchip's embedded-development software quickly and easily from www.microchipdirect.com.

The first Microchip products being offered through this service are the MPLAB C18 and MPLAB C30 C compilers. These compilers are full-featured and ANSI compliant, and download with extensive libraries for embedded-development applications using Microchip's PIC18 high-end 8-bit and PIC24 16-bit families of microcontrollers, as well as the dsPICdigital signal controllers.

More software products are expected to be added in the future. Microchip also announces its intention to work with third-party software vendors to offer their software tools and libraries for download on microchipDIRECT. MPLAB C18 and MPLAB C30 C compilers are fully integrated with Microchip's free MPLAB Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Both compilers generate relocatable object modules, which can be linked with assembly modules or in-line assembly code to generate reusable code modules for any embedded application.

"Making software instantly available from the microchipDIRECT site is an often requested feature from our customers, and will further assist them in achieving their design objectives quickly and easily," said Derek Carlson, vice president of Development Tools at Microchip. "With no shipping costs involved, downloading software from microchipDIRECT can also be a convenient way to save money on the designer's toolkit."

A free Student Edition of each compiler is also available for evaluation download from the Microchip Web site at www.microchip.com/c30 and www.microchip.com/c18 respectively.

Microchip Technology Inc. 1-888.MCU-MCHIP

www.microchip.com

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