Editing PIC microcontrollers (section)

===PIC17===
The PIC17 series never became popular and has been superseded by the PIC18 architecture (however, see [[#PKK Milandr|clones]] below). The PIC17 series is not recommended for new designs, and availability may be limited to users.

Improvements over earlier cores are 16-bit wide opcodes (allowing many new instructions), and a 16-level deep call stack. PIC17 devices were produced in packages from 40 to 68 pins.

The PIC17 series introduced a number of important new features:<ref>{{cite web |url=http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/30412c.pdf |title=PIC17C4x microcontroller data sheet |publisher=Microchip Technology |year=1996 |access-date=2016-08-16 |id=DS30412C}}</ref>

* a memory mapped accumulator
* read access to code memory (table reads)
* direct register-to-register moves (prior cores needed to move registers through the accumulator)
* an external program memory interface to expand the code space
* an 8-bit × 8-bit hardware multiplier
* a second indirect register pair
* auto-increment/auto-decrement addressing controlled by control bits in a status register (ALUSTA)

A significant limitation was that RAM space was limited to 256 bytes (26 bytes of special function registers, and 232 bytes of general-purpose RAM), with awkward bank-switching in the models that supported more.