Originally Posted by
Melanie
Of the PICs you mention, we use thousands of the 16F628A and the 18F2420... we DON'T do ICSP but always program them before fitting...
We've NO problems with the 16F628A apart from we have discovered that executing an ERASE before programming eliminates 1st time programming errors (even on factory new parts). This is something to we routinely do on all PICs now - not just on this one.
There are unexplained anomalies with the 18F2420... whilst it programs just fine, about 3% have a problem with PORTB.7 on one particular application which tends to go away if you reprogram the PIC a second time. We had a batch in the summer of 2007 which were really flaky and unstable with regard to internal EEPROM which became corrupted very easily. It's a device that comes up with surprises from time to time...