Date: 17/03/2009

PIC embedded systems development kit costing $124.99

Microchip Technology has released a new development kit for learning embedded system designers. The kit named PICDEM Lab Development Kit is an entry-level development platform for all of Microchip's 8-bit Flash PIC microcontrollers (MCUs) with 20 or lesser pins. The kit is targeted at students, teaching institutes where the learner is new to embedded systems world. This tutorial kind of development kit for embedded system developers comes with a development board containing five popular 8-bit PIC MCUs; a bag of discrete components; a PICkit 2 Debugger/Programmer; and a CD containing a User's Guide, labs and application examples. It's more or less a self-learning tutorial package for embedded system developers.

The photos of the kit can be seen at,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/microchiptechnology/3346997266/sizes/l/

There is prototyping area on the PICDEM Lab development board to wire the circuit without soldering. PICDEM Lab User's Guide that comes with the kit provides some examples to try out. It's absolutely meant for those fresh and inexperienced engineers and hobbyist who would like explore applications of 8 bit MCUs.

"The PICDEM Lab Development Kit is a great addition to Microchip's 8-bit tool suite, offering an off-the-shelf evaluation kit for many of Microchip's low pin count 8-bit MCUs," said Derek Carlson, vice president of Microchip's Development Tools group. "The kit provides an affordable solution for new customers who wish to learn how our advanced peripherals can help simplify their designs, as well as an excellent resource for educators who design microcontroller-based engineering courses."

Code examples for each lab in the PICDEM Lab Development Kit are available in the high-level C programming language, using the free HI-TECH C Compiler in the main user's guide, which is available as a free download from http://www.microchip.com/HI-TECH.

For engineers who can't visit Microchip office or distributors to buy this kit is, they can buy this kit online at http://www.microchipdirect.com
This will be beneficial for many engineering colleges in India, which are located far away from Metros.

Pay $124.99 to procure these below parts.


1. PICDEM Lab Development Board, with samples of five 8-bit PIC MCUs (PIC16F690-I/P (20-pin PDIP package) PIC16F88-I/P (18-pin PDIP package) PIC16F616-I/P (14-pin PDIP package) PIC12F615-I/P (8-pin PDIP package) PIC10F206-I/P (8-pin PDIP package)
2. Component Kit
3. PICkit 2 Debugger/Programmer
4. CD containing comprehensive user's guide, labs and application examples.
5. Free HI-TECH C compiler available at http://www.microchip.com/HI-TECH.

Please note its not only Microchip, lot of other 8-bit other microcontroller vendors do provide low cost kits for embedded developers. Few companies to name in 8-bit area are Atmel, Luminary Micro, ST Microelectronics, NXP, Infineon, and OKI Semiconductor.
There are options to buy kits starting from US$50 onwards; Luminary Micro is the best source for low cost ARM processor based kits. They have offices in India.