AVR-Chat

Cost of tools - AVRs cost significantly less to get started, including a 
development board, than the PICs any day ... and this is for 
commercially available, high quality development tools.

Clock cycles per instruction cycle - not a big hairy deal at high 
frequencies and slow machine operation but can be significant when 
trying to conserve power by using lower frequencies.

Paginated memory - used to be a bigger issue prior to the 18 series, not 
so much now.

Instruction set - we eventually must make a decision to either have a 
smaller instruction set to remember with larger code size because of it 
or to have a larger and more powerful instruction set for smaller code.  
Also see above comment about instruction cycles at lower clock 
frequencies.  This may not be an issue when using high level languages, 
but all we use here is assembler.

Peripherals - the greater number of peripherals available on most chip 
versions is a significant factor when standardizing on several models to 
keep in stock.

Availability - we've never had a problem with availability of AVRs.  
PICs are another story.

Obsolescence - when Atmel obsoletes a part they always have a model that 
will plug into the same hole, perhaps with some minor changes to the 
code.  Microchip has not been so kind.

Hardware - PICs have several gotchas that aren't obvious where the AVRs 
have always been more straight forward.  Using an external crystal comes 
immediately to mind.  I spoke at length about sunny beaches on more than 
one occasion trying to get the oscillator working with our first PIC 
project.

I could opine about the experience level of AVR versus PIC users and how 
I've told several people over the years that when they want to get 
serious about microcontrollers they need to concentrate on AVRs (right 
Aaron?), but that might start a religious war.  The PIC user groups also 
seem to be more forgiving of those who would borrow, or share, store 
boughten code and programming tools from one another, tools that others 
have developed and offer for sale in order to support their nasty habits 
... like feeding their families.

Just my $0.022 ...


REB


Philippe Habib wrote:
> I'll admit that I mostly use PICs and my only use of the AVR was due  
> to a client requirement.  That said, I didn't find any real reasons  
> to hugely favor one over the other.  The AVR feature set on the part  
> I used is pretty much available on a PIC with small differences.   
> Price was about the same.  It was just a matter of learning a new set  
> of quirks to get it all to do what I wanted.  So when I hear that a  
> part isn't suitable for doing X, I have to wonder what the thought  
> process of the person is.
>
>
> On Jun 16, 2008, at 1:17 PM, John Samperi wrote:
>
>   
>> At 02:48 AM 17/06/2008, you wrote:
>>     
>>> I'm really curious about what it is that gives you doubts.
>>>       
>> He works for Microchip???
>>
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> John Samperi
>