I am searching digikey for a chip and there are so many variations I don't know what the difference is! I tried looking through Atmel's site but not much luck. I am looking at the ATMega168 chip and these variations came up:
ATMEGA168A-PU-ND
ATMEGA168PA-PU-ND
ATMEGA168PA-PN-ND
ATMEGA168-20PU-ND
ATMEGA168P-20PU-ND
What does the P/A/PA/PU/PN/ND suffixes mean? Any ideas how that will effect design/programming/bootloading?
The differences will show up in device signature bytes, causing you a little grief when its time to bootload/program, which can be worked around.
ATmega168 0x1E 0x94 0x06
ATmega168 0x1E 0x94 0x06
ATmega168A 0x1E 0x94 0x06
ATmega168PA 0x1E 0x94 0x0B
So I guess not really too different.
Functionally they are similar, with subtle differences you are not likely to notice.
P for picopower.
-PU vs -PN is a temperature rating. -PN has higher upper temp than -PU.
-ND is a Digikey thing for how it is packaged for sale (individually, tube, whatever)
I used to know what the A meant, need to look it up again.
You can find all their datasheets here