Microchip Unveils Free AI-Powered Coding Assistant for MPLAB

Microchip Technology has added a free AI-powered coding assistant that could be a potentially game-changing way in which software developers and embedded engineers write and debug code on its products.

Accessible as a free Microsoft Visual Studio coding (VS Code) addon, the MPLAB AI Coding Assistant combines Microchip’s AI chatbot for real-time support with the Continue open-source AI coding assistant. The chatbot offers customized, context-sensitive help on Microchip-specific products and is continuously updated. Key features include advanced autocomplete, error detection, an edit function and easy access to searchable documentation within the integrated development environment (IDE). Beyond conventional text-based responses, the tool also includes a special sidebar chat capability that can display block diagrams, hence improving the coding experience.

Microchip COO Rich Simoncic and Rodger Richey, VP of development systems and academic programs at Microchip, illustrated the potential features of this coding assistant. They claimed that the tool simplifies software development so engineers may produce better programs more quickly with less work.

Rich Simoncic (Source: Microchip)

“We’ve been using this internally for quite some time, and the results have been outstanding,” Simoncic said. “Our internal application developers have reported a productivity improvement of more than 40%, and now we’re excited to share this with our customers.”