AVR or PIC

[beginer electroner]

hello
i'm a new member, and this is my first post.
could anyone please tell me the main differences between the AVR nd the PIC microcontrollers,
I've been working with the avr for a while, but I recognized that is most websites talk about the PIC ones!
could you please advise me what I must do.

 

[dknguyen]

Just because it's more popular doesn't mean it's any better. If you use the AVR and are used to it, you can probably use it better than a PIC. Just keep using the AVR.

 

[beginer electroner]

thank you a lot

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Yes, any microcontroller is probably capable of most jobs, none is 'best', and if you already have knowledge of AVR's you may as well stick with them - unless you have a specific reason (or need) to move to something else?.

 

[bibinjohn]

AVR is better than PIC because of free softwares. Simple programmer. See my avr programmer.
**broken link removed**
Low power+speed better than PIC. Lot of help available in net. See forums like avrfreaks.net

Bibin John
www.bibinjohn.tk

 

[mramos1]

They are both good. I use both. But the AVR seems to be easier to get running for me. But I am always playing with different PICS and you need to read all the data one them.

 

[philba]

AVR is better than PIC because of free softwares. ...**broken link removed**

lets be clear, the main advantage here is that the AVR has a free, unlimited C compiler (GCC). Other than that, the PIC software, source code, ap notes and so on blow the Atmel offering out of the water.

personally, I much prefer the AVR instruction set for its cleanliness and regularity.

Other points:
- PICs are pretty rugged and take a lot of abuse. the AVR is easy to get into a state where you can't reprogram it with out removing it from the circuit (set the wrong fuse and curse).
- there is a much larger community of PIC developers than AVR. far more free source code and circuits. Microchip has a really broad ap note library.
- the PICs seem to have much wider chioce of chips..
- the low pin count AVRs have a really nice single pin programming interface (2 for PICs, trust me, 1 pin can make a difference).
- if you are programming in assembly, the AVR is a far nicer chip.

edit: fixed wrong quote. sigh...

 

[dknguyen]

SO in short....you must do nothing! Kind of reminds of what Captain Barbossa said to Kiera Knightley...(lol I don't even know the character's name is) in the movie.

 

[beginer electroner]

I've found that PIC is much popular, because of its instruction set,
it has about 35 one, while AT90S2313 for example (and most AVR chips) has about 120 ones

 

[tmedap]

AVR is fastest, lot of possibility and easyst as PIC. For future You need
learn C!

 

[hjames]

I've found that PIC is much popular, because of its instruction set,
it has about 35 one, while AT90S2313 for example (and most AVR chips) has about 120 ones

Ahh, counting the instruction set can be deceiving - reading PIC assembly tends to be .. an acquired taste compared to the AVR's which resembles standard processors. Personally I like playing with status flags as much as anyone else, but there are times when you just want to compare numbers and be done with it...

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Like everything, it's purely a matter of personal choice, PIC's are by far the most popular - but they have been around far longer than AVR's, and Atmel even copied the three letter name!.

If you've ever written machine code on anything similar to the AVR?, then obviously you will find it easier - if you've never written machine code at all?, then the PIC is probably easier, and there's a lot more help available out on the net for PIC's.

But like I said, it's personal choice!.

 

[dknguyen]

Coffee is also an acquired taste (as far as I can tell, I just can't believe it's not since it smells so bad), and yet everyone seems to drink it!

 

[beginer electroner]

I'm now writing a learning AVR lectures,
may be in about one month I'll put it here, which includes a practical applications you can do it by yourself.

 

[beginer electroner]

For future You need
learn C!

so could you please give me some links about it!

 

[mramos1]

Also look at bastoc.com for a BASIC compiler.

 

[Micro82]

Hi all,

I've been programming and using the Microchip PIC for a number years now. Although I haven’t had any experience with AVR's I much prefer the PIC.

I've only just had to learn C for the Pic after a number of years but it’s not all that bad and in some ways it's a lot easier to use.

E.g. Delays, Lcd routines ect ect.

It's only when you get into the 18Fxxxx series & USB you really need to use the C compiler as I have found out myself.

If you are new to PIC then I would suggest starting with MPASM & MPLAB, which are free to download from www.microchip.com

All the best in what ever you decide to use.

Pete

 

[eblc1388]

PIC or AVR? It does not has to be one over the other.

Forget about argument of which is better. Learn PIC first(my suggestion), then learn AVR if one got the time and energy. Or, one can do it the other way round. It really make no difference.

 

[tmedap]

FOR LEARN C and AVR
**broken link removed**
http://www.softpanorama.org/Lang/Cilorama/open_books_and_tutorials.shtml
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http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/ee476/
http://www.learn-c.com/
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http://mikrocontroller.cco-ev.de/eng/download.php
http://www.iguanalabs.com/maintut.htm
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http://www.geocities.com/digitan000/Hardware/Eseries.html
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http://elm-chan.org/
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http://www.dbzoo.com/wiki/atmel/atmel
http://www.barello.net/avrx/index.htm
**broken link removed**

 

[ThermalRunaway]

I started out with the 6502 for a little bit, and then quickly moved on to the Z80 which is a fantastic processor - but because it's so easy to use I find it allows you the opportunity to learn bad programming habbits ;-)

I then moved on to the PIC and, because I've not yet found a situation where a PIC wasn't able to do a job for me, I've not bothered to change. For this reason, I couldn't possibly comment on AVRs.

One thing that really does bug me when I'm writing programs for the PIC, is the register bank thing. The PIC uses the same memory address for different sets of registers, except that you have to select a register bank before you address them. For example, the PIC 16F84 uses 7 bits to express the address of a register. The address for Port A is 0x05, and the address for the data direction register for Port A is 0x85. These two registers are exactly 0x80 away from each other!
Of course that would never work on a 7-bit address system, so the PIC uses register banks. You select the bank you want to use by setting a bit in the status register, and in this case if you want to write or read data from Port A you use bank 0. If you want to set the input/output settings of Port A you use bank 1. This means that you have to set or clear a bit in the status register every time you want to write to or read from registers which are in different register banks!!!

The whole process can be quite confusing for the beginner, especially if you mess it up because you'll spend ages wondering why your program doesn't work (I've been there and done that).

That's my only real bug-bear with PICs. Other than that I've found them to be excellent microcontrollers, and it doesn't take long to get used to the register banks really. There's a huge resource of support for them on the internet, including loads of application notes from Microchip's own website. And there are free compilers available.

Brian