1. Utsource:Programmable ICS (PIC)
After the innovation of integrated circuits the development pace of the electronics industry
increased rapidly. But still there was a slight drawback. An IC once used for a design and sold to
a PCB is hardly re usable. Because once sold taking the IC off from the board is a pretty hard
and very sensitive task since most of the chips are likely to get damaged if exposed to too much
heat. Now the solution has come to action and it is the programmable integrated circuit.
PIC devices provide a solution to the problem of recycling IC chips since they can be
reconfigured to perform many tasks whenever the designer intends to. At the manufacturer the
function of the PIC is undefined. In order to use the device to perform a specific task it must be
programmed using some sort of programming language and the necessary tools. Languages like
assembly, PIC C could be used to provide instruction to the device. Actually a PIC is like a very
small computer which is capable of storing and executing programs in order to manipulate
inputs and provide output.
Since the creation of programmable integrated circuits the capabilities of electronic circuits
have widened beyond the horizon. Most of the robotic functions involve programmable logic
devices like PIC chips. The potential of programmable ICs seem endless since they can be
configured to exactly carry out the designers’ logic. Some concrete steps have been suggested
by the electronic designer community in order to expand the capabilities of these devices even
farther such as increasing capacity and versatility and optimizing inputs and outputs.
In a programmable logic device there are registries and ports. By manipulating these registry
values and feeding inputs to the ports in order to get the outputs through the other ports is the
general idea of operation of PIC devices. However controlling the flow of a such program is
somewhat sophisticated since it has to be done using machine languages or some other
language which is although a bit more user friendly is still pretty close to the functionality of
machine language.
As soon as the PIC devices were developed the race was on to increase the logic capacity of the
devices. What started as 20-30 logic gates in the beginning has now evolved to several millions
of logic gates per device for more advanced devices. The first PLDs were built around a
universal fuse matrix that could implement just any logic function of its input variables.
Naturally, when more complex circuits were required, the architecture had to evolve too,
resulting in a regular array (‘fabric’) of Logic Elements. However the architecture of PIC devices
is becoming more complex and less uniform. Initially, it was based upon purely regular and
simple fabric, but as it addressed more demanding applications the picture has changed. Since
this diversity seems to be widening more than ever it has come to attention that re-using the
same logic in two different devices is becoming more and more complex. When the

2. architecture of the device changes too much from device to device the program which
performs the same task also has to change more than several alterations of registry selections
and it is not preferred.
A device programmer is used to transfer the Boolean logic pattern into the programmable
device. In the early days of programmable logic, every PLD manufacturer also produced a
specialized device programmer for its family of logic devices. Later, universal device
programmers came onto the market that supported several logic device families from different
manufacturers. Today's device programmers usually can program common PLDs (mostly
PAL/GAL equivalents) from all existing manufacturers.
About us:
If you are looking in to purchasing programmable integrated circuit devices UTSOURCE will be a
nice place visit. UTSOURCE is an online electronic component supplier and all the PIC devices
from the leading manufacturers such as Motorola and maxim are available at the store just few
clicks away. You can check it out at http://www.utsource.net/