Things to look for in a microchip

[toprank]

What are the things you should be looking for in a microchip, to know that it is a good chip?

 

[Pommie]

The last one I used in a project had 6 pins, 16 bytes of RAM and could hold 256 program instructions. As you may guess, you can't do a lot with that particular chip but it did the job I needed it to do.

In other words, you have to choose one to fit the job your doing.

Mike.

 

[Torben]

I agree with Mike 100%. It's exactly the same question if you're talking about any tool (and microchips are just a tool). Choose the one which will do the job you need at the lowest cost.

When I say "cost", I mean to figure in not only the price of the tool, but the amount of time, money and effort it will take to use it, balanced against what you need it to do. There is no point in spending money and time to get and use a tool which is too weak or strong for the job at hand.


Torben

 

[toprank]

8 bit means slower reading of code?


what are the differences between microchip pins?


sorry for all the questions guys, just trying to get a hold of it all.

 

[kchriste]

8 bit means slower reading of code?

In general, yes, an 8 bit processor is slower than a 16bit one running at the same clock speed.

what are the differences between microchip pins?

Now are we talking microcontrollers or microprocessors? A microcontroller is a self contained mini computer on a chip. A microprocessor is just the CPU without any RAM, ROM, etc.

sorry for all the questions guys, just trying to get a hold of it all.

At this point you need to tell us what you want to do with it before we can give you a meaningful answer.

 

[rezer]

What are the things you should be looking for in a microchip, to know that it is a good chip?

I guess the definition of a good microcontroller is one that fits your application. It just depends on what you need done.

 

[rezer]

what are the differences between microchip pins?

Please expound on your question. Give us specifics.

 

[matpaa]

I guess the definition of a good microcontroller is one that fits your application. It just depends on what you need done.

That is very true, however i have slightly different approach into that issue.

I'm noob with PICs also, but i figure out that because chips are pretty much all the same price the price will not be issue ... and you get some discount, when buying greater count.

So, i more or less carefull select two pics that will fullfill my needs on most of my planned and propably future projects. 18F2321 and 18F4580.

Both those are from same family, so it will be easy to use same code in both chips.
I only need to learn how to program one chip and what's more is in the other,
so regardless the project it's allways equally easy to do programs ... and i can use old code also.

So, that's how i see it.

- Matti -