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Electronics => Electronics => Topic started by: BEAMer on December 29, 2008, 09:33:13 AM

Title: what does 16 stand for in PIC16F87X?
Post by: BEAMer on December 29, 2008, 09:33:13 AM

hi,

we had a tutorial last week and there was one question "what does 16 stand for in PIC16F87X microcontrollers?".
no one in my class knew the answer :(......

can anyone tell me what 16 stands for?


BEAMer

Title: Re: what does 16 stand for in PIC16F87X?
Post by: BEAMer on December 29, 2008, 09:35:40 AM

The PIC16F87X is an 8 bit processor. so i think 16 stands for something else.....

Title: Re: what does 16 stand for in PIC16F87X?
Post by: cosminprund on December 30, 2008, 05:41:47 AM

That's the product family code. Go to the Microchip site, go to "Products", then go to "8 bit microcontroller" and you'll get to a page where it allows you to select products by any number of criteria. You'll see the PIC 16 family in the list.

Here's a direct link:
http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=2696&param=en537796

Title: Re: what does 16 stand for in PIC16F87X?
Post by: BEAMer on January 01, 2009, 10:23:22 AM

oh..... okay.. thanks  :)
But why have they classified it as 12,14,16,18,24 etc... does it refer to some bit size or something?

Title: Re: what does 16 stand for in PIC16F87X?
Post by: cosminprund on January 01, 2009, 10:42:35 AM

The BIT size would basically always be 1, especially if you measure it in binary ;)
12,14,16,18 are 8 bit microcontrollers. The "24" is an 16 bit microcontroller. There's the issue with the width of the instructions, but that seems to be independent of the family prefix :)

Title: Re: what does 16 stand for in PIC16F87X?
Post by: paulstreats on January 01, 2009, 11:56:13 AM

Here is a link to that exact question on the microchip forum:

http://forum.microchip.com/tm.aspx?m=129226&mpage=1&key=family%2cname&#130552 (http://forum.microchip.com/tm.aspx?m=129226&mpage=1&key=family%2cname&#130552)

Title: Re: what does 16 stand for in PIC16F87X?
Post by: geek1 on January 01, 2009, 05:27:57 PM

I'm pretty sure 16 is a series number. (Not a hundred percent sure though, so don't quote me on this)