Chapter 12 - More PIC Microcontrollers

Abstract

This chapter provides information on PIC microcontrollers and summarizes the additional features available in 8-bit PIC devices. The PIC 16F690 is selected for particular scrutiny, since it is used in Microchip's own basic demo hardware, the low pin count (LPC) board. The main groups of 8-bit (internal data) PIC flash devices are presented in a table and they are further divided into four groups: the 10F2xxx microcontrollers (MCUs) are the four input/output (I/O) devices with minimal features, the 12Fxxx series are eight-pin miniature PICs, the 16Fxxxx group is the mid-range series and the 18Fxxxx devices are the high-performance group with much larger memory and extensive I/O facilities. All PIC controllers use the same basic architecture and instruction set to provide a design progression path from simple programs to the most complex applications. The shared features of 8-bit devices include: Harvard architecture with RISC instruction set, flash program memory with in-circuit programming, RAM block including special function registers, and single working register and dedicated, non-writable stack among others.