I used 8051 for several years and then switched to AVR ,I think AVR is a very good choice and better than PIC in instruction set,speed at same crystal frequency,better C support,many peripherals.
PIC have very old architecture and is better for people that have meny years experience with it.
For new users I suggest AVR then ARM7 for advanced projects.
Definitely AVR. I have experience with AVR, and familiar with PIC. AVR's instruction set, peripherals and memory map are very well organized. Quality shareware also
available.
Reasons:
- it's easier to get (at least at my place)
- development tools/software are easy to get (most of them are free: AVR Studio, AVR-GCC)
- easy to transfer HEX file (using ISP)
- comes with many different specs and pin counts with such reasonable price.
for great applications which need more memory and faster clock just avr but for simple applications which cost are very important just use pic . easier cheaper and good substitute for 8051.
for great applications which need more memory and faster clock just avr but for simple applications which cost are very important just use pic . easier cheaper and good substitute for 8051.
I designed numerous high-volume applications with both PIC and AVR microcontrollers. In my opinion AVR is a better choice.
AVR's are cheaper then PIC's , have a much more better architecture, peripherals and speed. It's not a user friendly tool but a free C compiler (winAVR- a GNU GCC port) is also available for AVR's.
The biggest drawback of AVR , development tools are a little bit buggy. Not as mature as PIC enviroment.