PIC Microcontroller Development Boards and their Features

In this tutorial, we are going to discuss PIC microcontroller development boards and their features. Embedded systems play a very significant role in our daily lives, especially in the fields of industrial automation and home automation. Hence, we can say that in these systems, the microcontroller is a very important controller for the intelligent control of the system. Currently, we use different types of microcontrollers, such as PIC or Atmel, which are programmable via C or any other language with the help of microcontroller development boards.

PIC Microcontroller Development Boards

These development boards have different manufacturers, such as microchips or microelectronics. So, these printed circuit boards have all the facilities, which means we can easily burn and check the program to see if it is right or wrong. Here we will explain the brief synopsis of the top PIC programmer boards and their features.

Curiosity PIC Microcontroller Development board

Firstly, we have the curiosity program development board, whose design comes from Microchip Technology for 8-bit PIC microcontrollers. It is cost-effective and fully integrates with 8-bit microcontrollers. We can see this development board in the figure below:

Features of Curiosity PIC Development board

1. It supports the 40-pin, 8-bit microcontroller with low voltage.
2. It has a USB interface with an integrated programmer or debugger.
3. It has RN 4020 Bluetooth foot print.
4. It has physical switches and an analog potentiometer.
5. It has wide interface options, such as the mTouch button.

Ready for PIC Microcontroller Development Board

Ready for PIC is the development board, which is useful for the development of 28 and 40-pin PIC microcontrollers such as PIC 18F45k22 by connecting the 8 MHz crystal oscillator. We can see this development board in the figure below:

Features of Ready for PIC development Board:

1. It has full support for MikroC, Mikro Basic, and Mikro Pascal Compiler for PIC compilers.
2. It has 10 IDC headers for available microcontroller ports.
3. It has a USB-UART module, a prototyping area, and a power supply circuit.
4. It has a fast UART bootloader for on-board PIC programming.

It is designed on white plastic casing so each component could be sold separately

XLP 8-Bit pic microcontroller Development Board

The design of the XLP 8-Bit Development Board is by Microchip Technology. It requires very little power and has a very low sleep current, such as 20 nA. It is very sustainable for prototypes of very low-power applications such as energy harvesting, temperature sensors, electronic door locks, smart cards, and security sensors. For extensive low-power applications, the extensive line of daughter boards interfaces with this microchip development board. It is a very low-cost board and is ideal for providing the development environment for the PIC 16F and 18F microcontrollers. For reference, we can see this XLP 8-bit development board in the figure below.

Microchip XLP 8-Bit development board

Features of XLP 8-Bit PIC Microcontroller Development Board

1. It supports the PIC 18F87k22, which has 80 pins and 128KB of flash memory.
2. It also supports microcontrollers such as the 6LF194PIC17, which has 64 pins and 28 KB of flash memory.
3. It also has a current and voltage measurement facility.
4. It has a USB interface for power and PC communication.
5. It has LEDs for identification.
6. It has an LCD interface facility.
7. It has an analog temperature sensor and a CTMU-based diode temperature sensor.
8. It has power options such as energy harvesting, AAA, USB, CR2032, and an external 9 V power supply.
9. It has very easy connection with MPLAB PICKIT3, ICD3 or RESL ICE for input debugging and programming

XLP 16-bit PIC Microcontroller Development Board

The design of the XLP 16-bit development board is also by Microchip Technology. It is useful for very low-power applications. This board is ideal for low-power motor control, digital power conversion, advanced integration, and low-power security systems. We can see this XLP 16-bit development board in the figure below.

Features of XLP 16-Bit pic Development Board

1. It has 20 and 28 pins, shared footprint sockets, and associated headers for the PIC 24F microcontroller.
2. It has an 8 MHz and 32.768 KHz oscillator circuit for the PIC 24F microcontroller.
3. It has a power LED.
4. It has a power control switch IC (IC PWR).
5. It has an adjustable regulator (LDO).
6. It has a temperature sensor, a potentiometer, and a serial EEPROM.
7. It also has capacitive touch pads and capacitive measurements points

XLP 32-Bit pic microcontroller Development Board

The design of the XLP 32-bit development board is also by Microchip Technology. It provides a very simple and easiest method to experience 32-bit PIC microcontrollers. It has all the features such as write, debug, and execute the program for a high-performance 32-bit microcontroller.

Features of XLP 32-Bit PIC Microcontroller Development Board

1. It has a free MPLAB IDEX and an MPLABXC32 compiler.
2. It has 512K flash,32K ram and 4 channel DMA.USB powered board.
3. It has 3 users switched and 3 LEDs.
4. It has full source-based debugging in MPLAB XIDE.
5. It runs and verifies the program in 9 seconds.

EasyPIC V7 8-Bit PIC Microcontroller Development Board

The design of the Easy PIC v7 8-bit development board is by the Microelektronia Development Tools Company. Its design is to experience an 8-bit microcontroller such as the PIC 18F78K22 microcontroller. We can see this board in the figure below:

Features of EasyPIC V7 8-Bit PIC Development Board

1. It could be useful for a variety of applications, such as Ethernet, USB, temperature measurements, and graphics.
2. It also supports the PIC18F, PIC18FJ, and PIC18FLK.
3. It has special function registers (SFR).
4. It has CODE, RAM, and EEPRM along with code execution hardware.
5. It also 80 Pins MCU card that could be sold separately.

PIC KICK Development Board with PIC16F877A

The design of the PIC kick development board is for PIC 16F and 18F microcontrollers. It is a low-cost, kick-start development board for PIC 16F877A. It is useful for low-power applications. We can see this board in the figure below.

EasyPIC Development Board for PIC18f4520

Easy PIC Development Board for PIC 18F4520 is the starter board for 40 and 28 pin microcontrollers. It is low-cost, and it is only for PIC microcontrollers, as we can see in the figure below:

Features of EasyPIC Development Board for PIC18f4520:

1. It has serial a bootloader with on board microchip 18F4520 microcontroller.
2. It is powered up externally or USB port.
3. It has on board USB to serial communication converter
4. It 12 MHZ replaceable crystal to clock the microcontroller.
5. It also has reset push button.

PIC-P26J50 Porto PIC Development Board

Lastly, we have the PIC-P26J56 Porto development board, whose design is for the PIC 18F26J56 microcontroller, and it has been developed using high-speed low-power CMOS flash memory technology. Its figure is shown below:

Features of PIC-P26J50 Porto Development Board:

1. It has 64 K flash with pic microcontroller.
2. It has UBS connector with 8 LEDs.
3. It has user button and reset button.
4. It has UEXT connector.
5. It has dimensions 61*45mm.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this article provides an in-depth overview of different PIC microcontroller development boards. It covers development boards curiosity, ready for PIC, XLP series for 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit microcontrollers, easy PIC, PIC kick, and PIC-P26J50 Porto development boards, along with their features to help us better understand the concept. So, you can utilize this to see the differences between each development board. Hopefully this was helpful in expanding your knowledge in terms of PIC development boards.

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This concludes today’s article. If you face any issues or difficulties, let us know in the comment section below.