The peripheral-rich 8-bit PIC microcontrollers offer the best price/performance ratio in the industry, with Flash, one-time-programmable and ROM program memory options. Based on a powerful RISC core, these families feature a common architecture for easy migration from 6 to 100 pins with little or no code change required. Microchip’s High Performance Architecture encompasses the PIC18 family of devices. These microcontrollers utilize a 16-bit program word architecture with 18- to 80-pin package options. The PIC18 devices are high performance microcontrollers with integrated A/D converters. All PIC18 microcontrollers incorporate an advanced RISC architecture that supports Flash and OTP devices. The PIC18 has enhanced core features, 32 level-deep stack and multiple internal and external interrupts. The separate instruction and data buses of the Harvard architecture allow a 16-bit instruction word with separate 8-bit data. The two-stage instruction pipeline enables all instructions to execute in a single cycle, except for program branches, which require two cycles. A total of 79 instructions (reduced instruction set) are available. The PIC18 family has special features to reduce external components, thus minimizing cost, enhancing system reliability and reducing power consumption. The PIC18 family builds on the foundation established by the other 8-bit PIC microcontrollers and provides engineers with a smooth, easy migration to these higher levels of performance and feature sets.
