EEVblog #63 - Microchip PIC vs Atmel AVR

National Semiconductor's COP8.

Sinowealth's weird-asf 4 bit microcontroller microwave thing.

I'd love to get the "F" variant of the PIC16C71. Reading the datasheet of that thing and it's pretty captivating!

Or maybe get some nitric acid and install a hole in the package so that UV light can reach the EPROM on the silicon die.

"which one shoud I choose" "it doesn't matter"

Yes that's totally correct. However, a newbie would like a recommendation.

And this is exactly what dave did in this video.

For what i understand the main problem is the compiler? Easy to use. PROPRIETARY? Gcc?
Has anyone any clue?

It looks to me are both owned by microchip? When was this viedo published?

Who got 50 bucks?

Cameras are as religious as this - listen to fanboys rabbet on about their precious
full marketing frame cameras - the ones that they never take with them because the lenses are so big and heavy LOL
MOST pictures are taken with PHONES ...and ... The best camera is the one you have with you.

Very good video even though its 12 years old. Your a very nice guy Dave. <3

Hi Dave. I'm just a hobbyist. I really love this video. I nearly pissed myself laughing. Thanks, I needed that. I understand where you're coming from. By the way, I'm also an Atmel fanboy, 😂. I bought several Arduino kits a year ago, later a Mega2560, and recently several Nano boards. Arduino microcontrollers are the only ones I know. I also have a Raspberry Pi 400. I've wanted a Raspberry Pi 4 for a while now, but at the price these things are selling I'm not inclined to get one any time soon. If you have one laying around you're not using I'll take it😉. I just ordered a few ESP8266 microcontrollers, and an STM32F446 microcontroller development board. I'll eventually get a PIC and ESP32. I'm not satisfied just reading or hearing about these. I have to try them to better understand the differences between them. I agree with you though. What I got from your video is it all depends on whether or not the microcontroller does the job. You don't need a microcontroller that does everything and anything if you don't need it to do everything and anything. Too much is overkill. Too little is a bust. Besides, it's not the first time you try to get this point across. You have my respect and admiration. You're one of my most trusted resources when it comes to electronics. I can tell you know your stuff. It's not just BS. Thanks Dave.

It has been 12 years since this vide, but I do want to say, 1) I agree. 2) I DESPISE any uCU that does not have an internal clock that is as fast as it's max ability. ATMEL and PIC are both EVIL in this!!!!!! 3) Most uCU do not have the ability of their comparator output to be a clock input for any internal timer/counter ...UNFORGIVEABLE!!!!!!!!!! Padauk PMS150C DOES! :)

LOVE IT...

Funny seeing this today where almost everybody is useing Atmel / Microchip AVR based Arduino Boards... Nowadays I would only use PICs if I repair any older boards... Personally I would today mostly use the state of the art RP2040...

It took me 15 years to get my first PIC working, but then I made quite a few assembly programs, very funny and simple, datasheet is easy to understand. Atmel (arduino) is easy to use, it took me less than a year to get that embeded led to blink, the architechture is slitly more complicated, I wouldn't venture into the assembly but the c enviroment of arduinos alows for bigger programs made faster. I would say that PIC is way better but Atmel has more support.

I can't believe this video was uploaded 12 years back. You are awesome.

I think they finally bought atmel

КР580ВМ80 fans are outraged.

But how to study pic programming?

Funny enough both won since avr is most popular now because of arduino but Microchip was one who brought atmel.

The real best MCU is the WDC W65C265S, objectively. Because its my favorite it is the absolute best for everything. ... <.< >.>

I thought it was another Apple vs Android kind of video.

I would love to see a review of this video comparing the atmels and pic's against an allen bradley system. I know they have lots of features, but also a lot of limitations and costing you all your savings to achieve something that you can achieve with the atmels and pic's. Still people buy their shit and "love" and "hate" them at the same time. I would love to see if you love it or just burn the whole thing down.

Hey Dave what's better a soldering iron or a multimeter? Ultimately this is about hobby dudes pretending to be pros and justifying their choices and getting hysterical over things that don't matter. The same kind that have RGB on their PC's. Not having to use a resistor in a circuit is more efficient. sarcasm /off

Man how is this for foreshadowing...

I might be a boycotted as a fanboy 4 this, but asamof im ok with AVR and ARM but i have a thing with arduino. Maybe its that the 2 categories are meant 4 2 different reasons, but i hate on arduino a bit cuz u cant learn anything. There are libs for very basic functions( i mean almost no 1 uses the basic arduino stock libs like wire and SPI. I mean i remember seing 1 for controlling an LED.) and most of the registers of the actual hardware are owershadowed( this is cuz of the only problem i hv with AVR: the bad instruction set.(how would TRISB.RB7 =1 compare to reg_piob_odsr ?). as a conclusion i say that arduino and avr is great for protos and PIC is better for building things, for in depth learning, and for better efficiency and speed.

meanwhile using software simulators for z80 and 8051 at university and zero physical hardware

11 years later, I tend to use atmel for prototyping and PIC for production. I don't know why, that's what a wise guy told me.

I know this is an old video... But this thing makes me pretty angry! Atmel is the only one I use. It's clearly superior. For ME cause I've never touched a microchip! The thing I get angry about it when people think they know everything about everything! I don't think people spend a lot of time learning about things they hate. That would put them at a disadvantage when comparing with things they DO understand clearly. The thing that makes me even madder is generally when people think they have learned all there is to learn. If you stop learning, you get left behind.

And now they are merged and we get new products with good things from both.

40mA current on I/O is really all that sold me on AVR, as it can reduce component count (e.g. relay pulses) in certain circumstances in my work

Absolutely fantastic, perfectly my pov 😁👍🏻I must be an aussie at heart 🤣

I guess, meanwhile it does matter in some way. While AVR generally come with better integrated peripherals, the MPLABX has become real crap. Hard to tell in what way it works for real with more than one specific controller. I got it running for PIC32MX150, but with this insane Harmony thing it is still a nightmare. The rest of the controllers I use, like 24fj series does not run well when developing with MPLABX, to be honest, because of the crappy libraries that come from Microchip. So my best choice is still to use the outdated MPLAB 8.92, to get the 16 bit family running at all. --- Just to compare with Atmel Studio 7. Atmel development is writing it's code almost on it's own. It is so easy working with Atmel Studio 7, one can do it while asleep. But the greatest advantage, the compiler does not add nonsense code to promote selling the compiler for monthly fee, like Microchip compilers that come with MPLAB do. Because this is what they do, they simply add nonsense assembler instructions to slow the code down, as long as one is not willing to pay some monthly fee for their compilers.
So at this point in time, AVR has a great advantage, while it does not offer some integrated peripherals like NCO, DAC and the like, like some PIC do. But that's most the time something one does not really miss too much. So AVR is the better choice at this time, while Microchip now tries to switch their compilers for something that compiles both PIC and AVR at the same time integrated in the shitty MPLABX ... for a fee of course, if one does not want to have the nonsense code for slowing the thing down in it. That they try getting people rent their compilers for quite some money, is in my opinion is one of the reasons why AVR is spread amongst hobbyists much wider than PIC ever had been.

2020 laughs in Arduino. I learned with pic in school, but have not seen a pic in the field since then. Ive seen more tis than pics in things.

I'm a beginner and I don't know C and basically very new to all of this. I started with an Arduino Uno, and then ran into issues needing more than 2 external interrupts, so I upgraded to a Leonardo, then I ran out of SRAM due to the libraries I needed to use, so I upgraded to the mega which let me continue development and now as my code and design nears completion I'm rethinking which chip I really need based on the requirements of my project which feels pretty good. So far I think the atmega 3208 has the features I need but you have expanded my world and now I'll investigate other manufacturers although I will say, it seems like a scary proposition hahaha

Most of the commands take 3-4 cycles at Microchip and only 1-2 at Atmel.
In other words: Atmel is 4-times faster with the same crystal.

LMFAOO - This dude knows what he's talking about. PIC and AVR will be irrelevant since ARM is on the rise... ARM Cortex... STM32...

I think that AVR wins in the most 8bit cpus, but pic24s, dspics are really good, and in the 32 bit market, ST is quite good.

This is kinda like Debian(Pic) vs Arch(Avr) users

This was the video tat got me into electronics. Thanks Dave!

My favorite EEVBlog episode. Dave is positively mellow now.

Freaking atmel :)

Been a subscriber since Metuselah recommended it and it takes YT 10 years to recommend this... You're spot on, Dave. Cheers, mate.

Well, now Atmel belongs to Microchip. If I am asked to choose one from PIC and AVR (All Atmel family stuff), I would choose Atmel because I have invested quite much money inside the Atmel ICE and PICkit is so damn expensive for me now... I used to design a DSP application with dsPIC but I was scared by the cost. My two mainstream MCU families now are Atmel family and MSP430 family.

This video is just a waste of time

do a update to this topic !!

Seems a bit weird commenting on a 10 year old blog! But it does show how things changed in the meantime. Arduino fixed pretty much all of the toolchain issues with the AVR, but only yesterday I was developing on an ESP32. I also work much more ectensivly with ARM. Times change, but often so slowly you forget the compromises of what is really the recent past.

PIC fanboy I see 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Before arduino was born

I would PIC AVR