Is there any difference between micro-controller and PIC?

Answer 1

PIC® 's are microcontrollers. PIC® 's are a large range of microcontrollers manufactured by Microchip Technology Inc. The 8-bit range, also known as the PIC16 range is a popular microcontroller range for beginners and students. Especially the PIC16F84 and PIC16F877. There are many books available that help students with the basics of microcontrollers. I would recommend any beginner to start by using a book on PIC's like "PIC in Practice by D.W. SMITH" or many others like PIC Trix and so on. A complete book will guide you better through the learning stages than the bits and pieces on the internet. Internet will help you allot once you are more experienced.

The PIC16F84 does not support USART (Universal Synchronous Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter) therefore it cannot perform serial communications such as RS-232 (comport) communications unless very unconventional attempts are made to create it in firmware (software programmed into the chip) which I don't recommend.

If you are a beginner and want to use PIC but also feel you want to extend your experiments to communications with a computer, other PIC's or serial IC's. Then I would recommend starting with PIC16F877 they may be intimidating at first, but after you studied its datasheet and learned some basic assembler or ANSI C, you can get started. For beginners I actually recommend assembler since it teach you more about the operation of the microcontroller in its core. I would recommend looking at www.microchip.com for the MPLAB program and search the net for MPASM compiler and ICprog programmer software (you need an extra driver for parallel port if you program via parallel port in win XP perhaps Vista as well). Unless you want to spend a fortune on programmer hardware you can build your own. a Tait style programmer may work well with ICprog, there are many circuits on the internet for this type of programmer.

Other microcontrollers are also available in the same level. There are MSC51 standard Atmel 89C51 or 8051 family and then there is Atmel AVR, like the ATMEGA8. The nice part about the ATMEGA8 for instance is that if you feel comfortable with this device and probably started using C language to make life easier. You find it very easy to move up to ATMEGA128 which is a more advance microcontroller. For AVR's there are a very resourceful website called http://www.avrfreaks.net/ go have a look.

The best approach to microcontrollers is not to commit your self to quickly to a particular one or brand name, "play the field a bit". Once you are more experienced it's best to use your experience and choose a nice microcontroller that can do most of what you will need and try stick with it or a very few variations at least. It takes very long to study and learn a particular make or model very well and you really do not want to go through all that every time you do a new project.

But to make your first MCU (micro controller unit) project a PIC project is not a bad idea due to all the basic educational resources and help available.
PIC is the series of microcontroller having some advance features then other series of microcontrollers like 8051. one is the speed that is fast in comparison and we can also interface usb through it.

Answer 2

A microcontroller is a general term for a small computer contained on a single integrated circuit, while PIC (Peripheral Interface Controller) is a specific type of microcontroller developed by Microchip Technology. So, all PICs are microcontrollers, but not all microcontrollers are PICs.