I am working on a project where a Cygnal C8051F226 microcontroller will be able to connect to a series of peripheral devices via an I²C bus. The desire is that these peripherals each be able to generate a PWM (pulse width modulated) signal of resolution at least equivalent to 14 bits.

The I²C bus connections are proposed because the number of desired channels is greater than the number of channels of 16-bit timer on-board the microcontroller. The product design must also be flexible to permit the number of channels to change based upon the product configuration and the I²C bus fits this senario very well.

It is obvious that any one of a number of low cost 8-bit microcontrollers could be programmed as an intellegent peripheral chip to produce the I²C bus to PWM functionality. However I would really like to find out if there is a ready made peripheral chip in a small surface mount package (such as an 8-pin device) that performs the desired function.

I have searched for this via Google and not located a suitable part. The search has even come up short trying to find a part that has one or two 16-bit timers in it that could be configured as a PWM generator.

Does anybody have any ideas? Please note that an 8-bit (256 level) PWM solution is not useful to the application.

Michael Karas