The Explorer 8 Development Kit is a full-featured development board and platform for 8-bit PIC® microcontrollers. This kit is a versatile development solution, featuring several options for external sensors, off-board communication and human interface. Additionally, it offers ample room for expansion, making it an excellent solution for developers and engineers looking for a tool with the largest number of supported 8-bit PIC MCUs.
The Explorer 8 Development Kit is the latest offering in a long line of enterprise-class tools for 8-bit PIC microcontrollers. The board is an evolution of the popular PIC18 Explorer Board, and has been updated to take advantage of our most modern features including:
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On-chip Core Independent Peripherals
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Compatibility with all PIC MCUs
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8-, 14-, 20-, 28-, 40/44-, 64- and 80-pin footprints
With the Explorer 8 Development Kit, you can have a single development platform that allows you to update a legacy design while supporting our newest MCU offerings.
Microchip designed the Explorer 8 Development Kit to be your main tool for 8-bit development with support for a wide variety of functions. On-board components enable easy development of human interface, power conversion, Internet of Things (IoT), battery charging and other applications using a powerful 8-bit PIC microcontroller. Additionally, the Explorer 8 Development Kit also has a large capacity for expansion. Two Digilent Pmod™ interfaces, two MikroElectronika Click™ board sockets and two custom expansion headers allow you to quickly adapt as your development needs change. The Explorer 8 Development Kit supports several program and debug solutions including the PICkit™ 3, ICD 3 and MPLAB® REAL ICE™ In-Circuit Emulator.
As with all of our modern development platforms, the Explorer 8 Development Kit is designed to use the internet as a conduit for design ideas. To that end, we provide application and code examples for many new 8-bit PIC MCUs on our website in order to energize your creativity. Code examples and application schematics can be found at www.microchip.com/Explorer8.
The Explorer 8 Development Kit seamlessly integrates with MPLAB Code Configurator (MCC) for a modern embedded development experience. MCC is a free software plug-in that bridges our MCUs, development hardware and MPLAB X Integrated Development Environment (IDE). It allows you to generate easily modifiable, production-ready application code for many 8-bit PIC MCUs in just a few mouse clicks. Find out more at www.microchip.com/MCC.