what does 16 stand for in PIC16F87X?

[BEAMer]

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

[BEAMer]

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

[cosminprund]

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

[BEAMer]

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?

[cosminprund]

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

[paulstreats]

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

[geek1]

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