Microchip Devices

Detailed Device compaisons and selection aids.

When selecting a device to use for development, keep in mind that code for the smaller devices can often be written more easily and faster using the larger devices, since you can take advantage of the extra space and ability for debug routines, self test hardware and, with the 16f877 and higher chips, the low cost and more accurate debugging abilities of the ICD

jamesp at intertex.net says:

Just as an FYI, you can use the ICD to develop software for ANY downward level PIC by just using those peripheral modules that your target PIC is equipped with. For instance, I have used the ICD to develop code for the 16F877, 16F84, 16C84, 16C71, 12C672, and the 12C508. In all but one instance, the code developed for these parts worked first time out in the target. The one time it didn't is because I screwed up and put some code where there wasn't any memory in the target. But once I changed that, all went well. So, bottom line is the ICD can be used to develop code for anything from the F877 on down.

Device specific notes:

Microcontroller "Conversion Guidelines" and "Migration Documents" (such as "PIC18F to PIC24F Migration: An Overview" ) are helpful when you have source code designed for one chip, but you want it to run on a different chip. There are many reasons for people to do this:

In addition to microcontrollers, Microchip also sells many other ICs:

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