Introduction to PIC Microcontroller 2022

PIC microcontrollers are one of the microcontroller chips made by Microchip Technology. It is a small microcomputer used to manage the operation of embedded systems in different devices. In this article, our team will share the related knowladge about PIC microcontrollers. 

Ⅰ. What is PIC Microcontroller

PIC microcontrollers are a type of microcontroller chip made by Microchip Technology of Chandler, Arizona, USA. The abbreviation PIC stands for "peripheral interface controller", a term that is rarely used nowadays. Microcontrollers are small microcomputers used to manage the operation of embedded systems in various devices, such as motor vehicles, machinery, office equipment, medical equipment, mobile radios, vending machines, home appliances, and a variety of other devices. A typical microcontroller, including the processor, memory and peripherals.

PIC microcontrollers are particularly attractive to hobbyists and experimenters in fields such as electronics and robotics. Its key features include wide applicability, low cost, easy built-in EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable read-only memory), extensive collection of free application records, rich development tools, and a wealth of information available on the Internet.

1.1 Classification of PIC 8-bit microcontrollers

Now PIC series microcontroller in the world microcontroller market share ranking has been rising year by year, especially in the 8-bit microcontroller market, it is said to have risen from the 20th place in 1990 to the second place at present. PIC microcontroller from the coverage of the market, there are three (also known as three levels) series of a variety of models introduced, so the world can see PIC microcontroller from the computer peripherals, home appliances control.

Therefore, PIC microcontrollers are widely used in various fields from computer peripherals, home appliance control, telecommunication, intelligent instruments, automotive electronics to financial electronics. Nowadays, PIC microcontroller is one of the most influential embedded microcontrollers in the world.

Classification of PIC 8-bit microcontrollers

There are three series of PIC 8-bit microcontroller products, namely, basic level, intermediate level and advanced level.

a. Basic level series. The products of this level are characterized by low price, such as PIC16C5X, which is suitable for a variety of home appliances with strict cost requirements. Another example is PIC12C5XX, the world's first 8-pin low-cost microcontroller, which can be fully applied to the space of home appliances that previously could not use microcontrollers because of its small size.

b. Intermediate level series. This level is the most abundant variety series of PIC. It is an improvement on the basic level products and maintains a high level of compatibility. The external structure is also various, from 8-pin to 68-pin in various packages, such as PIC12C6XX. The performance of the products in this level is high, such as internal interfaces with A/D converter, E2PROM data memory, comparator output, PWM output, I2C and SPI, etc. The PIC intermediate series products are suitable for various designs of high, medium and low grade electronic products.

c. Advanced series. This series of products, such as PIC17CXX, is characterized by its fast speed, so it is suitable for high-speed digital operation applications, plus it has the ability to complete 8×8 (bit) binary multiplication operations in one instruction cycle (160ns), so it can replace some DSP products. In addition, PIC17CXX has rich I/O control functions and external expansion EPROM and RAM, which makes it one of the highest performance 8-bit microcontrollers at present. So it is very suitable for use in high and mid-range electronic devices.

The above-mentioned three-level (level) PIC 8-bit microcontroller also has high code compatibility, and users can easily convert the code from one model to another. PIC 8-bit microcontroller has the advantages of fewer instructions and faster execution speed, which is mainly due to the fact that PIC series microcontrollers are structurally different from other microcontrollers. This series of microcontrollers introduces a dual-bus and two-level instruction flow structure originally used for small computers. This structure is different from the general use of CISC (complex instruction set computer) microcontroller in the structure.

1.2 Introduction to Arduino Microcontrollers

Arduino is a relatively new system based on the AVR architecture with more RAM and ROM than the 8051 microcontroller, and is a computing platform that can be used to build electronic projects. Arduino is often used for IoT products, while microcontrollers are often used for automation products.

Arduino is a microcontroller board with pre-tested software and hardware libraries, and its own integrated development environment (IDE). It is a computing platform for building electronic projects. In fact, one of the advantages of designing a project around Arduino is that it can handle even the low-level electronic details for you.

The Arduino ecosystem consists of three main components: the Arduino board, external hardware, and the Arduino IDE. all of these components work together to enable you to do anything with Arduino. You can program the device to perform any operation, such as controlling lights and motors or reading sensors. Just like a microcontroller, it processes inputs and sends outputs.

Ⅱ. Features and Applications of PIC Microcontrollers

2.1 Features of PIC Microcontrollers

1. Reduced Instruction Set (RISC) technology. The instruction system of the PIC series MCU has only 35 instructions, and about 20 are commonly used. They are easy to and use. Most of them are single-cycle instructions, and the execution speed is fast!
2. The addressing method is simple. PIC series microcontrollers have only 4 addressing modes, register indirect addressing, immediate addressing, direct addressing and bit addressing!
3. High code compression rate. PIC series microcontrollers can store 1024 instructions
4. Strong driving ability

Here are several MCU to share with you: 

•  73S1209F-44IMR/F/P by Maxim  
•  ACE1502VMT8_Q
• ADUC7025BCPZ62-RL

2.2 Application of PIC Microcontroller

With the remarkable advantages of low power consumption, strong control function, high reliability and advanced degree, the microcontroller has become a practical tool in the field of science and technology in the current society and a powerful assistant in people's life. Its application areas have been expanding, according to the use of the introduction of the following major application areas

1. Household appliances

You may not believe it, at present the average resident home can be said that 99% of electrical appliances are used to the microcontroller. For example, rice cookers, refrigerators, fans, washing machines, air conditioners and LCD TVs and other common household appliances, as well as a variety of audio equipment, niche weighing scales, nebulizers and so on will be used microcontrollers.

2. Medical equipment field

Microcontroller is also widely used in the field of medical equipment, the low-end field commonly used thermometer, electronic thermometer, high-end field of various analyzers, respiratory machines, monitors and ultrasonic diagnostic equipment and so on.

3.Industrial control field

Because the microcontroller can form a variety of control systems, data acquisition systems. Therefore, it is widely used in the intelligent management of factory lines, intelligent control of elevators in buildings and various alarm systems, and can also be networked with computers to form secondary control systems.

4. Intelligent instrumentation field

Microcontroller has the advantages of small size, low power consumption, strong control function, flexible expansion, micro-miniature, easy to use, etc. It can realize various physical quantities, such as voltage, power, frequency, humidity, temperature, pressure, etc., by combining with various types of sensors. Through the microcontroller control, the instrument is digitalized, intelligent and miniaturized, and its function is more powerful than using electronic and digital circuits. High-precision measuring instruments (energy meters, oscilloscopes, various analytical instruments).

5. Computer network communication field

Microcontroller by having a communication interface, can directly communicate with the computer for data. For example, cell phones, remote monitoring switch, automatic communication call system, wireless intercom, etc. are realized by the microcontroller intelligent control.

6. Modular application in large appliances

Some special microcontrollers are used to achieve specific functions, so they can be modularly applied to different circuits without the user knowing their internal structure. For example, music integrated microcontrollers, seemingly simple functions, miniaturized on a purely electronic chip (different from the principle of magnetic tape), require complex principles similar to those of computers. For example, the music signal is present in memory in digital form (similar to ROM), read by the microprocessor and converted into an analog music electrical signal (similar to a sound card).

Of course, the application areas of microcontrollers are much more than these, in addition to the above six major areas, microcontrollers also have a very wide range of uses in industry and commerce, finance, education and defense and aviation. With the development of 32-bit and 64-bit microcontrollers, the computing efficiency of microcontrollers has been greatly improved, in the future, the application areas of microcontrollers will continue to expand!

You may like: [2022] The Important Role of Microcontrollers in Appliances

Ⅲ. PIC Microcontroller Programming

For microcontroller hobbyists and introductory microcontroller students, as with any other MCU, the following software tools are usually required to program a PIC microcontroller.

(1) IDE (Integrated Development Environment), which converts symbolic logic written for an application into program commands.

(2) A compiler, which converts the program into an MCU assembly language commonly referred to by design engineers as a HEX file.

(3) IPE (Integrated Programming Environment), which is ultimately used to transfer hex files into the PIC after certain program adjustments have been made.

(4) In-line debugger/programmer.

According to microcontroller development engineers, Microchip's software development tools are admired by many for their performance and ease of use. The company's MPLAB XIDE, MPLAB XC compiler and MPLAB IPE relieve microcontroller developers of the burden of purchasing third-party tools.

For first-time users of 8-bit PIC microcontrollers, Microchip has made getting started easier by introducing MPLAB Xpress, a cloud-based IDE that eliminates the tedium of downloading, installing, configuring and regularly updating tools. MPLAB Xpress includes the MPLAB Code Configurator, which enables users to use a graphical interface and pin diagrams to automate the process of configuring 8-bit (or 16-bit) PIC microcontrollers to automatically generate initialization and application C code.

As with other microcontrollers, the first step is to set the configuration registers. The bits programmed in these registers specify basic device operations such as oscillator mode, watchdog timer, programming mode, and code protection. These bits must be set correctly for the code to run successfully.

Once the configuration bits are set, the rest of the program creation process is application dependent. Once the code is complete, the next step involves moving the logic-based entities into the real world of bits.

The Integrated Programming Environment (IPE) can perform a variety of functions, including the transfer of programs created on a PC or workstation into the MCU. As mentioned earlier, Microchip's environment combines these functions, but the three important concepts are PIC emulation, debugging and programming. A full description of the software tools and how they are used is beyond the scope of this paper.

It is worth mentioning the PICkit 3 in-circuit debugger/programmer as it is additional hardware and therefore conceptually more advanced than the software configuration of the other tools.

Ⅳ. Conclusion

Microchip's PIC series microcontrollers are practical, low cost, easy to learn, power saving, high speed and small size. Rather than simply stacking functions, this series of microcontrollers is available in multiple models to meet the needs of different levels, and low-cost OTP chips are available.

In addition, this series of microcontrollers also have low power consumption sleep function, power-down reset lock, power-up reset circuit, watchdog circuit, etc. Moreover, they have few peripheral devices and occupy little space; the cost is low and the secrecy technology is very reliable, which can protect the interests of developers to the maximum extent. Therefore, it has an extremely broad development prospect in many fields such as industrial control, instrumentation, computers, home appliances, etc.