PIC16x84

thumb|Two Microchip PIC16C84 chips The PIC16C84, PIC16F84 and PIC16F84A are 8-bit microcontrollers of which the EEPROM based PIC16C84 was the first introduced in March 16 1993 at the suggested retail price of $3.72 in quantities of 10,000. It is a member of the PIC family of controllers, produced by Microchip Technology. The memory architecture makes use of bank switching. Software tools for assembler, debug and programming were only available for DOS and Microsoft Windows 3.X operating systems.

== Description == The PIC16x84 is a microcontroller in the PIC family of controllers produced by Microchip Technology (originally named " Arizona Microchip"). It was Microchip's first microcontroller that utilised "EEPROM" memory technology for the program memory. The use of "EEPROM" technology for program memory has now been disused in favour of "FLASH" memory that is considerably cheaper to manufacture, releases less toxins into the atmosphere and is much more reliable than "EEPROM". Both "EEPROM" and "FLASH" utilise similar forms of "floating gate" technologies to operate. The device features one 8-bit timer, and 13 I/O pins. The PIC16x84 became popular in many hobbyist applications because it uses a serial programming algorithm that lends itself to very simple programmers. Additionally, the PIC16C84 uses EEPROM memory, so it is easy to erase and requires no special tools to do so. The PIC16F84 and its updated version, the PIC16F84A both utilised FLASH program memory. The PIC16C84, PIC16C84A, PIC16F84 and the PIC16F84A all contain an additional 64 Bytes of EEPROM addressed from the "DATA" memory map. This additional memory is intended for use as "user data", hence the reason it can only be addressed from the "DATA" memory mapping.