Hi guys, Lurker waking up with this thread. I use PIC's day and night for commercial use, and want to chime in also...
Depending on what you want to do, PICs are great. AVR's and PIC's generally fit the same application space, but Atmel (the AVR folks) still struggling to make a profit after several years, so I cannot put them into production for anything. Microchip has never discontinued a PIC to date AFAIK. Atmel has gone more hobbyist in recent years and has gained popularity because of the Arduino. Microchip continues to target the commercial markets, so yes you can expect less direct support from them. But IME Atmel's support has been poor and Microchip will respond directly to me when I need. Still though, there is great forum support for both. Atmel has pretty much touted C as the language of choice for years now, while Microchip has pushed assembly and is more recently starting to push C. Your choice depends on what you want to do, but I still use assembly quite a bit for serious bit-banging. C of course is much quicker to program in. Atmel offers their C compiler for free, while Microchip offers their non-optimizing version for free. In my tests, that still produces great code, but if you want to do a one-off project in C and optimize the hell out of it, then Atmel may be the choice for you. ARM processors fit a different space (that require a bit more processing power), but if you know how to code it's amazing what you can do with a PIC32. For example, look at the Chipkit, which is a PIC32 clone of the Arduino running at 80Mhz and 32-bit processor, and it runs rings around the Arduino while being code compatible. ARM's may sound nicer because of speed and power, but for commercial use, cost becomes a big factor. For a one-off, spending a couple extra bucks is no issue. Anyway, my point here is that smaller microcontrollers like PICs and AVRs are a great choice depending on what you want to do, and the time and money you want to invest in it. Cheers, -Neil. On 4/16/2012 3:06 PM, Stephen Dubovsky wrote: >> I don't mean to offend anybody, but AVR's are cheap and fall down easy >> to get started with. Why bother with PIC's? The only reason I can think >> of, is to fill time with the challenge at hand. >> >> > Haha. I think the same thing now, but my suggestion is ARM. We've used > PIC for over a decade at the office (+ TI dsp, + Motorola/freescale, +etc) > and have recently gone 100% ARM. The Cortex M4(F) is bigger, faster& > cheaper than a TI 28xx fixed pt dsp and the Cortex M0 is faster& cheaper > than a tiny freescale HC08. Whatever peripherals you need, someone prob > makes an ARM w/ just what you want. > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. > Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. > Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! > http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
