Help with arduino uno to breadboard

Hello,

I am working on a school project and I purchased a Arduino uno with the Atmega168 microcontroller on the board. I currently have a working prototype with the arduino uno hooked up to my laptop and communicating with other peripherals on a breadboard. The next step in my process is getting the Atmega168 off the uno and onto my breadboard (and eventually to a PCB). I have read various method on how to do this and none of them have yielded much success I believe the first step is burning the bootloader so my microcontroller will run my program on boot up. I was wondering if someone could point me in the right direction to aid with this process money and time are tight so the simplest solution the better. thanks again!

soverholser:
I believe the first step is burning the bootloader so my microcontroller will run my program on boot up.

That's wrong. The purpose of the bootloader is to allow uploads via a USB-serial adapter such as FTDI FT232. It's absolutely not required for the microcontroller to run your program on boot up. You can Upload Using Programmer, which means there will be no bootloader installed and the program will still run fine but you will need to use an ISP to do your uploads. If you do want to burn a bootloader on your ATmega168 I recommend using GitHub - MCUdude/MiniCore: Arduino hardware package for ATmega8, ATmega48, ATmega88, ATmega168, ATmega328 and ATmega328PB, which includes optiboot bootloaders for that microcontroller which are smaller than the ones included with the Arduino IDE, saving some of that precious flash memory for your sketches.

I suggest you work your way through the process, using the large amount of information already available regarding this topic then if you do encounter a problem that you can't get past come back here with more focused questions and much more information on your setup and what you're trying to achieve. With what you've provided so far it's clear that you haven't done much research and have not given enough information for us to really help you.

You have, in addition to the Uno with its Atmega168 chip, a second Atmega168 chip which you want prepare and use on the breadboard?

I used this breadboard tutorial successfully. I run all my breadboard Atmega chips using their internal 8MHz oscillator. It makes the external circuit very simple. And they can run reliably on 2 xAA batteries or a 3.3v supply.

I assume the instructions would apply equally to an Atmega 168 as they do to the 328.

...R