The PAC1761 and PAC1861 families are designed to help customers build better performing and more reliable 48V systems that can measure instantaneous conditions and understand energy consumption and availability over time.
As power demands surge across AI data centers, automotive systems, and industrial networks, the industry is rapidly shifting toward 48V power architectures to boost efficiency. But managing that kind of power requires more than just a quick snapshot of current and voltage, designers need intelligent systems that can track energy over time and adapt on the fly.
To bridge this gap, Microchip Technology has rolled out the PAC1761 and PAC1861 families of 65V energy-aware digital power monitors.
Moving to a 48V architecture is great for efficiency, but it introduces a major hurdle and that is transient survivability. To keep systems safe from sudden surges, monitors need serious operational margins.
Microchip built these new devices to deliver up to 65V of measurement headroom, backed by 75V of spike protection, ensuring they can weather harsh power conditions without failing.
But durability is only half the story as these chips are designed to be proactive. Instead of just reacting to instantaneous power spikes, the PAC1761 and PAC1861 analyze accumulated energy data over time.
They come equipped with programmable alerts for voltage and current excursions, step-limit detection to instantly catch sudden load shifts, and customizable energy thresholds. This allows engineering teams to shift from reactive troubleshooting to smart, real-time system management.
Targeting heavy-duty applications like AI servers, telecom and Power over Ethernet (PoE) setups, and 48V distribution networks, the lineup offers both 12-bit (PAC1761) and 16-bit (PAC1861) options.
To make life easier for hardware designers, Microchip is offering the monitors in pin-compatible VDFN-8, VDFN-10, and MSOP-10 packages, alongside automotive-orderable variants.
This built-in flexibility means engineering teams can easily swap components if project requirements, costs, or availability change, sidestepping the headache and delays of a complete board redesign.
Leadership Comment
“The industry conversation is shifting from measuring power at a single point in time to understanding and responding to energy behavior across an entire system and its lifecycle,” said Keith Pazul, vice president of Microchip’s mixed-signal linear business unit. “The PAC1761 and PAC1861 families are designed to help customers build better performing and more reliable 48V systems that can measure instantaneous conditions and understand energy consumption and availability over time. These scalable, low-power solutions reduce monitoring overhead and include pin-compatible package options that improve source flexibility while reducing design risk.”
Development Tools
Development support includes evaluation board EV12R33A, a Python Command Line Interface (CLI) with library, Linux® driver and generic C library with multiple MCU code examples.
Pricing and Availability
Products in the PAC1761 and PAC1861 families are available now starting at $0.56 each in 10,000-unit quantities for the PAC1761T-3E/E3 and PAC1861T-1E/3P, both in the MSOP-10 package. The price of the evaluation board EV12R33A is $49.00.
You can purchase directly from Microchip or contact a Microchip sales representative or authorized worldwide distributor.
