The A, B, ... revisions are primarily die shrinks. Some of the errata are
corrected on newer silicon but sometimes new bugs creep in. Smaller die can
cause differences in capabilities due to the smaller geometries being less
forgiving of things like over stressing. On some of the new die the
programming algorithm has changed and there have been some changes in
configuration fuses to enhance code protect or to add other features like
the power up timer. Always use the proper include files and programmer
selections to be sure of no extra surprise.


At 07:03 AM 6/25/99 -0700, you wrote:
>OK, so I've looked carefully at the data sheets and I STILL can't
>determine the functional differences between the various flavors of 16C65
>chips (16C65, 16C65A, 16C65B), except that the plain 16C65 doesn't have a
>brownout reset capability. Obviously, the A and B chips are different
>silicon (I have windowed versions of both, and the B die is much smaller)
>and I know there are some different errata, but are they otherwise
>identical? If so, why are there different include files in MPASM? (In
>fact, I just ran a diffs on them, and the A and B files  are identical
>except for the header info.
>
>So I'm still curious: if it was just a silicon rev, why have separate
>data sheets, etc? Seems overly confusing to me: jeez, I spent a good
>couple hours just poring through data sheets trying to find the
>differences.
>
>In any case, it seems that as long as I pay attention to the errata, I
>can freely interchange the A and B versions in my programmer and circuit
>without any trouble, yes?
>
>Dave Johnson
>
>
Larry G. Nelson Sr.
mailto:L.Nelson@ieee.org
http://www.ultranet.com/~nr