MPLAB Integrated Development Environment

Integrated development environment

An integrated development environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development...

 (IDE) is a free, integrated toolset for the development of embedded applications

Embedded system

An embedded system is a computer system designed for specific control functions within a larger system. often with real-time computing constraints. It is embedded as part of a complete device often including hardware and mechanical parts. By contrast, a general-purpose computer, such as a personal...

 on Microchip's

Microchip Technology

Microchip Technology is an American manufacturer of microcontroller, memory and analog semiconductors. Its products include microcontrollers , Serial EEPROM devices, Serial SRAM devices, KEELOQ devices, radio frequency devices, thermal, power and battery management analog devices, as well as...

 PIC

PIC microcontroller

PIC is a family of Harvard architecture microcontrollers made by Microchip Technology, derived from the PIC1650 originally developed by General Instrument's Microelectronics Division...

 and dsPIC microcontroller

Microcontroller

A microcontroller is a small computer on a single integrated circuit containing a processor core, memory, and programmable input/output peripherals. Program memory in the form of NOR flash or OTP ROM is also often included on chip, as well as a typically small amount of RAM...

s.

MPLAB IDE v8

The current version of MPLAB IDE is version 8. It is a 32-bit application on Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 and includes several free software components for application development, hardware emulation

Hardware emulation

In integrated circuit design, hardware emulation is the process of imitating the behavior of one or more pieces of hardware with another piece of hardware, typically a special purpose emulation system. The emulation model is usually based on RTL source code, which is compiled into the format...

 and debugging

Debugging

Debugging is a methodical process of finding and reducing the number of bugs, or defects, in a computer program or a piece of electronic hardware, thus making it behave as expected. Debugging tends to be harder when various subsystems are tightly coupled, as changes in one may cause bugs to emerge...

. MPLAB IDE also serves as a single, unified graphical user interface for additional Microchip and third-party software and hardware development tools.

Both Assembly

Assembly language

An assembly language is a low-level programming language for computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other programmable devices. It implements a symbolic representation of the machine codes and other constants needed to program a given CPU architecture...

 and C

C (programming language)

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

 programming languages can be used with MPLAB IDE v8. Others may be supported through the use of third-party programs.

Support for MPLAB IDE, along with sample code, tutorials, and drivers can be found on Microchip's website.
MPLAB IDE v8 does not support Linux, Unix or Macintosh operating systems.

MPLAB X IDE

MPLAB X is not a new version of the current MPLAB IDE v8 framework but is instead based on Oracle

Oracle Corporation

Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...

's open-source NetBeans

NetBeans

NetBeans refers to both a platform framework for Java desktop applications, and an integrated development environment for developing with Java, JavaScript, PHP, Python, Groovy, C, C++, Scala, Clojure, and others...

 platform. In addition to its predecessor's functionalities and compatibility with Microchip's existing development tools, the new IDE utilises many NetBeans features allowing for user-interface improvements and performance upgrades. This also includes highly-anticipated cross-platform support in MPLAB IDE, allowing development for PIC microcontrollers on Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

 and Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

operating systems, in addition to Windows.

MPLAB X is currently in beta.