Are there ICD3 drivers for the PIC18-Q84 family? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2025, 05:22:31 pm
content: I'm looking at moving a K80-based product to CAN-FD. The Q84 family's integrated CAN controller supports CAN-FD. Presently we have a lot of ICD3's around for development. Yeah, yeah, I know they're "old" but they work great and we've had excellent luck with them.We'd love to keep using them if we move to the Q84 family, but I don't know if Microchip has created ICD3 drivers for the Q84 family.Q1: Does the ICD3 work with the Q84 family?Q2: If not, what are the supported program/debug tools for the Q84 family?Q3: Anyone have experience with the Q84 family, good or bad?Thanks!

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2025, 07:01:15 am
content: 1) No.2) 4th and 5th gen tools. Look for pickit basic if you want to spend little money.3) Not directly. But it's a PIC, same old stuff. Setting up CAN FD is a chore, though, if you skim through the datasheet you'll see that. Use the dedicated RAM banks for CAN

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2025, 01:21:03 pm
content: OK, not a huge deal. Cost of a new debugger isn't the largest issue, it's mostly that we have a toolchain that is bulletproof and doesn't require retraining. The problem is that once you change one component, then that new component isn't supported by some other component so you have to update that, etc. The ripple effect is a nightmare when all you want to do is get real work done, not chase your tail learning a whole new toolchain just to do, as you correctly put it, the "same old stuff".I've found another challenge: the CTMU. We make extensive use of that in our products. The K80 and K22 families have it. The Q84 (with CAN-FD) apparently does not. In fact, Microchip's parametric search tool doesn't even have a column for the CTMU anymore!?! I presumed the Q84 was a superset of the K80 but apparently not. Doing a global search on their site for "CTMU PIC18" brings up the Q43 family, but the datasheet doesn't mention a CTMU at all.So now I'm on the hunt for a part that has both the CTMU and CAN-FD.

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2025, 07:21:51 am
content: Nope, you don't have the CTMU but you have the new ADC module with current sources/sinks and some automation to perform touch recognition. Don't know how it compares to the CTMU as it's something i only dabbled with years ago.The Q series actually uses a different core (still PIC18, but additional instructions, different bus widths and capabilities to make it a little more C friendly)The K83/K42 were the next step in the K80/K22 families, which added the vectored interrupts and some instructions, PPS, new ADC and the SMT, the Q84 is one or two families further aheadI don't think there is a device with CTMU and CAN-FD, because CTMU has been phased out like 7 years ago at this pointfrom my point of view, if CAN-FD is absolutely necessary, i see two options:- keep a part with CTMU, but move CAN-FD to an external controller- shrug and start porting both functionalities. If anything, porting CAN should be pretty simple, though a chore because of how many registers are there, depending on how well you kept the hardware interface separated from the application. When i made the switch i just had to rewrite four functions, without changing the interface:- Bus Configuration- Function that maps from can frame to hardware registers- Function that maps from hardware registers to can frame- Function to request the transmission of a frame

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2025, 04:02:26 pm
content: Quote from: JPortici on April 07, 2025, 07:21:51 amI wish the parametric search tool was more comprehensive.Are you saying Microchip formally started retiring the CTMU a while back? We still buy the K80 and K22 in reasonable quantities and the CTMU is a huge reason why. The CTMU is actually a remarkably useful peripheral and AFAIK unique to Microchip. I can't believe they'd walk away from it.

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2025, 05:53:26 pm
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on April 07, 2025, 04:02:26 pmwhat i meant is i am 99.9% sure there isn't.Yes, i remember the CTMU being much more usefult than QTouch or others at the time. If you want my guess, they may have changed process nodes in the meantime so the CTMU wouldn't work, or they decided it was redundant for the majority of usecases with the newer 12bit ADC