MPLAB is a proprietary freewareintegrated development environment for the development ofembedded applications onPIC anddsPICmicrocontrollers, and is developed byMicrochip Technology.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]}

MPLAB Extensions forVisual Studio Code and MPLAB X forNetBeans platform are the latest editions of MPLAB,^[9][10][11] including support for Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux operating systems.

MPLAB and MPLAB X support project management, code editing, debugging and programming of Microchip 8-bit PIC and AVR (including ATMEGA) microcontrollers, 16-bit PIC24 and dsPIC microcontrollers, as well as 32-bit SAM^[12] and PIC32^[13] microcontrollers by Microchip Technology.^[14][15][16]

MPLAB X IDE

Developer(s)	Microchip Technology
Stable release	6.20[17] / January 31, 2024; 13 months ago (2024-01-31)
Written in	Java (programming language)
Operating system	Microsoft Windows >7,Mac OS X,Linux[17]
License	ProprietaryEULA
Website	MPLAB X Homepage

MPLAB X is the latest version of the MPLAB IDE built byMicrochip Technology,^[18] and is based on the open-sourceNetBeans platform. It replaced the older MPLAB 8.x series, which had its final release (version 8.92) on July 23, 2013.^[19]

MPLAB X is the first version of the IDE to include cross-platform support formacOS andLinux operating systems, in addition toMicrosoft Windows. It supports editing, very buggy debugging and programming of Microchip 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bitPICmicrocontrollers. It supports automatic code generation with the MPLAB Code Configurator and theMPLAB Harmony^[20] Configurator plugins.

MPLAB X supports the following compilers:

• MPLAB XC8 — C compiler for 8-bit PIC and AVR devices^[14][21]
• MPLAB XC16 — C compiler for 16-bit PIC devices^[21]
• MPLABXC-DSC - C compiler for dsPIC family of devices
• MPLAB XC32 — C/C++ compiler for 32-bit MIPS-based PIC32 and ARM-based SAM devices^[14][21]
• HI-TECH C — C compiler for 8-bit PIC devices (discontinued)^[22]
• SDCC — open-source 8-bit C compiler^[23][24]

Debugger bugs:

• Memory view crashes the whole IDE when searching for an address
• Step over sometimes steps in and step out doesn't work
• Disassembler view is buggy showing incorrect instructions
• Phantom breakpoints that can't be cleared
• Automatic firmware update sometimes fail requiring full erase of SNAP

MPLAB IDE

Developer(s)	Microchip Technology
Final release	8.92[19] / July 23, 2013; 11 years ago (2013-07-23)
Written in	C++
Operating system	Microsoft Windows
License	ProprietaryEULA
Website	www.microchip.com/mplabx

MPLAB 8.x is the discontinued version of the legacy MPLAB IDE technology, custom built byMicrochip Technology in MicrosoftVisual C++. MPLAB supports project management, editing, debugging and programming of Microchip 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bitPICmicrocontrollers. MPLAB only works onMicrosoft Windows. MPLAB is still available from Microchip's archives, but is not recommended for new projects.^[19] It is designed to work with MPLAB-certified devices such as theMPLAB ICD 3 andMPLAB REAL ICE, for programming and debugging PIC microcontrollers using apersonal computer.PICKit programmers are also supported by MPLAB.

MPLAB supports the following compilers:^[19]

• MPLAB MPASM Assembler
• MPLAB ASM30 Assembler
• MPLAB C Compiler for PIC18
• MPLAB C Compiler for PIC24 and dsPIC DSCs
• MPLAB C Compiler for PIC32
• HI-TECH C

• Microchip MPLAB Website

• Embedded systems