Microchip’s PIC microcontrollers are supported by the MPLAB IDE which is used to integrate the development, debug and software utilities available when developing code for a product. MPLAB is the only platform you will need to develop for all of Microchip’s MCUs and DSCs and it can be downloaded for free on Microchip's website. Language tools are available from Microchip in the form of an Assembler (MPASM), a linker (MPLINK) and a C compiler. The C compiler for the PIC18 family is called MPLAB C18 and a free student version can be downloaded from the website. MPLAB IDE is designed to work with all of Microchip’s standard hardware tools such as ICD 2 and PM3 programmer. ICD 2 is a flash upgradeable in-circuit debugger which is connected to and powered by the USB connection on the host PC. It will enable in-circuit debugging via either single step or break points for each and cost-effective debugging. The only hardware tools that are not supported with the PIC18 J-series and thus the PIC18F97J60 family, are the ICE 2000 and ICE 4000 emulators. Instead, Microchip’s new MPLAB REAL ICE supports the entire PIC18 J-series. It is a low cost emulation system with high speed USB connection for full emulation speed and includes logic probes, device adapters, high-speed connectivity, debug and programming with capture and I/O port trace.