What's the PIC-chip type supply status ?

[easlab]

Originally I thought PIC's minimal DIL package idea was great.
Later it seemed that they were morphing a wheelbarrow to a
locomotive, with eg. their 32-bit 'version'.

Now I want to look at the 16C84 again.
Is this chip still expeted to be supplied for some years?

==TIA.



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[Xiaofan Chen]

On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 3:14 PM, Chris Glur <easlab@...> wrote:
> Originally I thought PIC's minimal DIL package idea was great.
> Later it seemed that they were morphing a wheelbarrow to a
> locomotive, with eg. their 32-bit 'version'.
>
> Now I want to look at the 16C84 again.
> Is this chip still expeted to be supplied for some years?
>

Why do you want to use such an old PIC? Even the new
variant 16F84A is very old. You can always count on
16F628A, 16F88, or the new 16F88x. Microchip is quite
good in terms of product life support and they seldom
obsolete parts.

As for PIC32, they have to be there since the competitors
are there already. Some customers like to go
for one-stop-shopping (8bit, 16bit, 32bit and analog)
and that is where Microchip is going to. And Microchip
is no long the Microchip 5 years before, it is now much
a bigger company, they can no longer stay there.

Xiaofan
http://mcuee.blogspot.com

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[Byron Jeff]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 08:00:00PM -0400, Chris Glur wrote:
> Originally I thought PIC's minimal DIL package idea was great.
> Later it seemed that they were morphing a wheelbarrow to a
> locomotive, with eg. their 32-bit 'version'.
>
> Now I want to look at the 16C84 again.
> Is this chip still expeted to be supplied for some years?

I think that you may have rolled the wheel a bit back too far.
Might I suggest you compromise and settle on the 16F88. It comes in the
same 18 pin DIP package, but contains enough memory and a bunch of useful
peripherals that can unload the code and management hassles of trying to
get multiple things done at once. And it's cheaper than the 16C84/16F84.

There's more discussion of this subject on my page here:

http://www.finitesite.com/d3jsys/16F88.html

BAJ

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[easlab]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 08:00:00PM -0400, Chris Glur wrote:
> Originally I thought PIC's minimal DIL package idea was great.
> Later it seemed that they were morphing a wheelbarrow to a
> locomotive, with eg. their 32-bit 'version'.
>
> Now I want to look at the 16C84 again.
> Is this chip still expeted to be supplied for some years?

Byron Jeff wrote:-
> I think that you may have rolled the wheel a bit back too far.
> Might I suggest you compromise and settle on the 16F88. It comes in the
> same 18 pin DIP package, but contains enough memory and a bunch of useful
> peripherals that can unload the code and management hassles of trying to
> get multiple things done at once. And it's cheaper than the 16C84/16F84.
>
> There's more discussion of this subject on my page here:
>
> http://www.finitesite.com/d3jsys/16F88.html

OK, got it.

Xiaofan wrote:-
> Why do you want to use such an old PIC? Even the new
> variant 16F84A is very old. You can always count on
> 16F628A, 16F88, or the new 16F88x. Microchip is quite
> good in terms of product life support and they seldom
> obsolete parts.
>
Hardware is cheap, software is expensive; the most valuable
is YOUR data/knowledge ?
I want to just plonk-in a DIL and not do another 'training
course'.

> As for PIC32, they have to be there since the competitors
> are there already. Some customers like to go
> for one-stop-shopping (8bit, 16bit, 32bit and analog)
> and that is where Microchip is going to. And Microchip
> is no long the Microchip 5 years before, it is now much
> a bigger company, they can no longer stay there.
>

Thanks,

==Chris Glur


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[Peter Stuge-4]

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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[Joseph.Julicher]

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 [mailto:peter@...]
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 10:03 AM
To: gnupic@...
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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[Peter Stuge-4]

On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 10:28:33AM -0700, Joseph.Julicher@... 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

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[Robert Pearce-3]

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.

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[Xiaofan Chen]

On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 1:28 AM,  <Joseph.Julicher@...> 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

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