The PIC24F family will be the first MCU covered in the 16-Bit MCU overview. The blocks shown here in red represent changes to the family that were not previously found in other PICs. The primary change in the PIC24F family is its new 16-bit core operating at up to 16 MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second) at 32MHz. The core has a 16-bit ALU as well as 16, 16-bit working registers. These were typically referred to as “W” registers in the 8-bit core families. There is now a 17 x 17 multiplier to help out during math functions, as well as a barrel shifter which can shift right or left multiple times in a single cycle operation. Say, for example, if a design calls for a 16-bit value shifted 4 times to the left. A JTAG interface is now available for emulation and testing. Since a majority of the programs on a 16-bit processor will be written in C, and to accommodate space for these programs, a large amount of Flash (up to 256KB) and RAM (to 16KB) memory is now available. Many of the peripherals found on the PIC24F can also be found on the 8-Bit offering, but several new ones are available. These include USB Host/Device/Dual/or OTG and CRC error correction peripherals.