gnupic: Thread: Re: [gnupic] Re: What's the PIC-chip type supply status ?

On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 04:26:13PM +0000, Chris Glur wrote:
> > Why do you want to use such an old PIC?
> 
> I want to just plonk-in a DIL and not do another 'training
> course'.

In practise, I find most 14-bit PICs to be quite similar, the major
difference being what peripherals are included or excluded.

Since your application used the 16C84 I think you could find a modern
day replacement and implement your application on it with only little
effort, certainly without any training course.

A quick read over the config registers for the peripherals in the new
chip and maybe a few bits changed in your init code and you should be
good to go.

In case you need a real long-term product as part of your application
I am sure you can negotiate extended lifetime availability with
Microchip for certain parts, but I imagine they will in turn require
a MOQ per year committment.

The 16C84 product is more than 15 years old. I do not think it is
realistic to expect a drop-in replacement to be available. It is
amazing how close the 16F88 comes.


//Peter

No PICmicro has been end-of-lifed.  There are currently no plans to
obsolete any PICmicro.

For the best price, look at the newer Flash devices for new designs.
I recommend the PIC16F628A for new development in 18 pins.

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Stuge ####@####.#### 
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 10:03 AM
To: ####@####.####
Subject: Re: [gnupic] Re: What's the PIC-chip type supply status ?

On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 04:26:13PM +0000, Chris Glur wrote:
> > Why do you want to use such an old PIC?
> 
> I want to just plonk-in a DIL and not do another 'training
> course'.

In practise, I find most 14-bit PICs to be quite similar, the major
difference being what peripherals are included or excluded.

Since your application used the 16C84 I think you could find a modern
day replacement and implement your application on it with only little
effort, certainly without any training course.

A quick read over the config registers for the peripherals in the new
chip and maybe a few bits changed in your init code and you should be
good to go.

In case you need a real long-term product as part of your application
I am sure you can negotiate extended lifetime availability with
Microchip for certain parts, but I imagine they will in turn require
a MOQ per year committment.

The 16C84 product is more than 15 years old. I do not think it is
realistic to expect a drop-in replacement to be available. It is
amazing how close the 16F88 comes.


//Peter

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On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 10:28:33AM -0700, ####@####.#### wrote:
> No PICmicro has been end-of-lifed.  There are currently no plans to
> obsolete any PICmicro.

This really shows outstanding support from Microchip! :) Clearly I
did not expect that much from you and I feel I should apologize.


> For the best price, look at the newer Flash devices for new designs.
> I recommend the PIC16F628A for new development in 18 pins.

Yes sir - it's a great starting point!


//Peter

On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:02:52 +0200 Peter wrote:
> 
> Since your application used the 16C84 I think you could find a modern
> day replacement and implement your application on it with only little
> effort, certainly without any training course.

Absolutely! 
I recently had an email enquiry from someone who had found http://lintrain.sourceforge.net and wanted to do something similar. The command station in that project was designed with a PIC16C54, it's so old, and the chap wondered whether it was at all possible to re-design it for a 16F628, because he had some.

That answer : no hardware change, three lines of code change, and most of those were moving the reset vector because it had gone from a 12-bit core to a 14-bit core.

So yes, on the whole, moving to the more recent PIC should present very little difficulty.

On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 1:28 AM,  ####@####.#### wrote:
> No PICmicro has been end-of-lifed.  There are currently no plans to
> obsolete any PICmicro.

That is the beauty of using PICs.

By the way, I remember that Microchip does EOL some other parts
(non-MCU). I heard one digital poti got EOLed last time. But it
is very rare even for non-MCU product. Not like some other
vendors.

> For the best price, look at the newer Flash devices for new designs.
> I recommend the PIC16F628A for new development in 18 pins.

I think the learning curve from 16C84 to 16F628A is not that difficult.
So the OP can use it.

Xiaofan