Designers who have been using PIC microcontrollers (MCUs) and developed with the MPLAB ecosystem can now easily evaluate and use AVR microcontrollers into their applications. The majority of AVR microcontrollers are now beta supported with the release of MPLAB X Integrated Development Environment (IDE) version 5.05, available now from Microchip. New enhancements and support for additional AVR series microcontrollers will be added in future MPLAB versions. AVR support will also continue to be added to Atmel Studio 7 and Atmel START for current and future AVR devices.
MPLAB X IDE 5.05 provides a unified development experience that is both cross-platform and scalable with compatibility on Windows, macOS and Linux operating systems, allowing designers to develop with AVR microcontrollers on their hardware system of choice. The tool chain has been enhanced with support for Microchip’s code configuration tool, MPLAB Code Configurator (MCC), making it easy for developers to configure software components and device settings such as clocks, peripherals and pin layout with the tools’ menu-driven interface. MCC can also generate code for specific development boards, such as Microchip’s Curiosity ATmega4809 Nano (DM320115) development board and existing AVR Xplained development boards.
More compiler choices and debugger/programmer options are also available when compiling and programming AVR MCUs using MPLAB X IDE 5.05. Compiler choices include the AVR MCU GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) or the MPLAB XC8 C Compiler, providing developers with additional advanced software optimization techniques to reduce code size. Designers can also accelerate debugging and programming using MPLAB PICkit™ 4 programmer/debugger tool or the newly released MPLAB Snap programmer/debugger tool.
