Experimenter’s board for enhanced mid-range PIC microcontrollers (PIC16F1827 and PIC16F1847)
The PIC16F628A has always been my first choice for microcontroller-based projects. It is simple, inexpensive, and easily available. Due to its compact size (18 pins) it occupies lesser space on the circuit board, and meanwhile, it is powerful enough to serve most of a hobbyist’s needs. It is a very well accepted successor of the classic PIC16x84, and therefore, the tons of resources available for PIC16x84 on the internet and books can also be used for PIC16F628A. Last month, Microchip Technology Inc. announced the latest addition to its Enhanced Mid-Range core 8-bit PIC® microcontroller (MCU) family by introducing PIC16F(LF)1847. When I went through its features I was tempted. The newly released PIC16F1847 seems to be the most powerful successor of the 18-pin PIC16F series of microcontrollers. It is pin-compatible with PIC16F628A but equipped with lot more peripherals and enhanced features. It has 14Kbytes of on-chip flash memory and 1KByte of data RAM. Now I never have to switch to a higher-end or bigger size PIC just because of the shortage of program memory or RAM. This would probably be the first 18-pin PIC device of the mid-range 8-bit family with so much of RAM and flash memory. Before this, Microchip also released PIC16F1827, similar to PIC16F1847 in peripherals and other features but with lesser program memory. I thought of doing some experiments with these two members of enhanced mid-range 8-bit PIC family and so decided to make my own development board for PIC16F1827/47. Making a development board is a one-time effort, and life becomes much easier after that.
Development board for PIC16F1827/47