Hello ..question ? what do you guys think about this atmel /microchip MERGE

[bandmwhitt2013]

this may not be a new thing to some of you guys...but Im not very sure I like it.. are they going to change the programming interface ? or change the AVRs all together ..maybe no change just upgrade the MCUs
just wondering what you guys think ..I may have posted this in the wrong place ..If so sorry 

[bandmwhitt2013]

i have been reading about PICs ..Very Interesting they seem to be a little more advanced than AVR ?

[CrossRoads]

There's a gazillion microcontrollers and microprocessors out there, many under the Microchip brand now. Find the one that has the internal peripherals to support your project.
This forum is for the AVR processors, and mostly the 8-bit models and their many, many variants.
Many folks have created 'core' code to make accessing their features.

If you want just DIP parts, then you are somewhat limited in the AVR family. There might be more in PICs,  I don't know what forum supports the PIC parts.

[bandmwhitt2013]

LOL..well I think ill stay with AVR ..I was wondering what others might think i really just do this for a hobby
so it doesn't really matter ..personally i think AVRs are simple to use easy to interface and have enough
program memory & peripherals to suit me

[westfw]

So far, the Atmel Acquisition by Microchip is going pretty well, I think.  I haven't seen any major complaints (here, or on any of the more technical AVR-related discussions) that can be blamed on the merge.

Microchip PICs are somewhat older than Atmel AVRs, and it was obvious when the AVR was first released that Atmel was targeting PIC users.  It was a hotly waged war for quite a while.
There are actually three different lines of PIC microcontrollers:
1) 8bit PICs like the PIC16x and PIC18x chips.  These are generally rather old-seeming chips, and are sort-of ugly and unpleasant to program.  They don't support the C or C++ language very well.
2) 16 bit PICs like the PIC24x and PIC30x.  These are supposed to be better.
3) 32 bit PIC32x chips.  These use an "industry standard" MIPS architecture that is comparable to the 32ARM chips used on Arduino Zero and Arduino Due.  They (some of them) are supported by the MPIDE Arduino core that you can get here: https://github.com/chipKIT32/chipKIT-core  One of the interesting features is that there are some PIC32 chips with 256k of flash and 64k of RAM in DIP packages!

[SurfingDude]

This forum is not just for the AVR products. The Arduino Due, Zero, and MKR series are IMO the next generation.

Back to the topic. The takeover cost some time on the losing team and as a result I think the Arduino WiFi101 board lost out. It was good but pricey. Consolidation is part of the industry and MicroChip continues to support all the products, though I don't know how they will resolve die shrinks and too many feb lines and also work on hardware for IPV6.

The Arduino v. Arduino battle also cost us some time and I sincerely hope that the new management team is able to continue the dream. The Arduino products, HW and SW, do not yet support the PIC line and I don't know if MicroChip will help put it there.

There are other hardware architectures out there, some with multiple cores, and it remains to be seen whether the Arduino way of looking at the world can be made effective on them. Perhaps they have found a different niche in the world or perhaps Arduino is already at an optimum sweet spot for its educational mission.

[AWOL]

i have been reading about PICs ..Very Interesting they seem to be a little more advanced than AVR ?

Not the 12 and 16 series devices.