PIC suffix or designation

Hi,

I'm brand new to micro controllers and electronics in general but I like to learn and it's interesting to me so I've been doing a lot of reading lately about it.

I just received the Pickit2 and while it's fun to play with on the 44 pin demo board, I wanted to try some other PICs so I ordered a few.

I ended up with 5- 16F628A-E/SS
5- 16F883-E/ML
2- 16F876A-E/ML
Instead of using the sample program, I just ordered a few without understanding what I was getting so I've done my part to offset some of the sample abuse.

Is there a reference for the suffix such as E/SS and E/ML? I did a cursory search but didn't find anything. Same goes for the package type...SSOP, QFN and so on. I'd like to order some PICs that are a little more user friendly(bigger) but this time I'd prefer to understand the naming convention so I don't end up with more tiny qfn chips that will be damn near impossible for me to use right now.



Howard

datasheets are your friends

Datasheet for each microcontroller will show you what packages are available and how each of them look like (yes that "extension" is the package type) ..

look for example 16F628A datasheet: https://www.electro-tech-online.com/custompdfs/2009/02/40044F.pdf

page 163: PACKAGING INFORMATION
18-Lead PDIP: extension is -I/P
18-Lead SOIC, extension is -E/SO
20-Lead SSOP, extension is -I/SS
28-Lead QFN, extension is -I/ML

the extensions actually tell you two things .. the part before "/" is "working conditions" .. so I stands for "industrial" E for "Extended" or something similar, not sure ... the second part (after /) is the package type ...

If you are just starting ...try to get /P as those are trough hole DIP/SIP packages
if you go further down the datasheet, pages 164-167 you see pictures and measurements of all packages the PIC in question can be found ...

btw, if you are just starting, go for 18F chips as the price is same and they are "more powerful" and easier to work with... you also have free C18 c compiler from microchip (and it is much faster / easier to program uC in C then in assembler)

welcome to the wonderful world of microcontrollers