Hello.

The situation is as follows:

PIC16F877A, running @ 8mhz intosc.

Have 1 free pin available (can alocate any, including one with PWM output).

Need to drive 4 rgb leds. All 4 should change colors together, so it can be considered as a single led. There is no animation, color effects or whatever - this is backlight and it will be tuned to specific value once configured and that's all.

I'd like to do it with as few extra components as possible, due to lack of available space.

I have the following ideas:

1. Add another MCU in 8 pin case, say, 12F683, connect it to main chip via serial and use it to drive leds via bitbam or whatever.
2. Use WS2812 LEDs, and to solve timing issues, wire them in parallels, instead of serial?
3. As a last resort - use only two colors of leds, say red and blue, and use inverted HPWM to drive them.

Of course, I'd like to do #2 - requires less extra hardware than others, but is this doable on 16F887?