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Developing With Microchip Devices in Your Ecosystem of Choice

Last modified by Microchip on 2026/04/17 16:38

Microchip is committed to meeting clients in their ecosystem of choice. You should be able to develop with Microchip devices using the tools and workflows that best fit your experience, industry, and project requirements.

In addition to Microchip’s own development tools, we collaborate with industry‑leading partners to enable development with Microchip devices across multiple Integrated Development Environments (IDEs), toolchains, and software ecosystems. This page explains what is currently supported for some of our partners, how responsibilities are shared, and how to choose the right starting point for your development.

Information

Note: Our collaboration with the following and other partners is ongoing, so check back with Microchip and your partner of choice for evolving support.

What This Means for You

When developing with Microchip devices:

  • You can work in your preferred development ecosystem, including partner IDEs and open‑source environments.
  • Microchip provides device enablement, such as silicon support, documentation, drivers, middleware, and board support (where available).
  • Partner vendors provide and support their IDEs, compilers, and debuggers.
  • The level of support varies by device family and ecosystem.

To simplify onboarding and reduce friction, start with MPLAB® Tools for VS Code®, even if you later transition to another toolchain.
This approach allows you to keep your existing workflow while ensuring Microchip devices are properly enabled and supported.

MPLAB® Tools for VS Code®

MPLAB Tools for VS Code allow you to perform nearly the full range of embedded development tasks that you would normally handle in MPLAB X IDE, but inside the lighter, faster, and more modern VS Code environment.

It can be used to:

  • Develop and edit firmware for Microchip MCUs
  • Import and manage MPLAB X IDE projects from MPLAB Discover or from your own code
  • Build and compile applications with MPLAB XC C compilers
  • Program and Debug devices using Microchip hardware tools
  • Visualize real-time system data using the MPLAB Data Visualizer extension
  • Leverage AI-assisted code workflows
  • Prepare ML-enabled and auto-configured projects

Using the MPLAB Code Configurator (MCC) extension, you can generate code for:

  • Melody: PIC® and AVR® MCUs and dsPIC® Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs)
  • Harmony: 32-bit MIPS® and Arm® Cortex®-based MCUs and MPUs
  • CMSIS: Arm Cortex devices
    • Uses CMSIS-Toolbox for CMSIS-Core, CMSIS-DSP

Even if you plan to use a partner IDE, MPLAB tools for VS Code are often the fastest way to understand a device’s peripherals, drivers, and configuration options in a Microchip‑validated environment.

Arm® Keil® Studio

Arm® Keil® Studio Pack (MDK v6) is a complete software development environment specifically optimized for Arm Cortex‑M architectures such as the Microchip SAM and PIC32C MCUs, and SmartFusion® and SmartFusion 2 Field‑Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) System on Chips (SoCs).

There are several reasons to use Keil when your Microchip device is Arm-based:

  • A powerful, industry standard Arm development environment
  • High-performance, safety-certified Arm compilers
  • Advanced debugging and trace features
  • Extensive middleware and CMSIS-based workflows
  • Direct Microchip support for SmartFusion development

The Arm-based PIC32CM-PL10 device family is the first Microchip device family to support CMSIS-based development, enabling use with CMSIS‑compatible toolchains such as Keil.

In this ecosystem:

  • Microchip provides CMSIS‑compliant device content (for example, device packs and drivers).
  • Keil provides the IDE, compiler, and debugger.

Check device support

IAR® Embedded Workbench®

IAR® Embedded Workbench® (EW) is a complete, professional‑grade development toolchain used for building (C/C++ compiler, linker, assembler), debugging (C‑SPY debugger), and optimizing software for embedded systems. IAR EW supports many Microchip devices, particularly Arm and AVR devices.

IAR EW is a strong choice for Microchip device development if you:

  • Need partner ecosystem support (not MPLAB only)
  • Are targeting Microchip devices that are Arm Cortex-M-based
  • Want CMSIS-aligned development
  • Care about toolchain stability and predictability
  • Work with clients who are already standardized on IAR

Note that support varies by device family and IAR toolchain version.

In this ecosystem:

  • Microchip provides device‑level content where applicable.
  • IAR provides and supports the IDE, compiler, and debugger.

Check device support:

  • Visit the "Supported devices" section on the IAR website and search for “Microchip”.

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Zephyr® RTOS

Zephyr RTOS is an open‑source real‑time operating system designed for embedded and resource‑constrained devices, especially microcontrollers. It supports multiple architectures, such as Microchip's Arm-based SAM and PIC32C MCUs.

Zephyr Software Development Kit (SDK) is the official, pre‑built toolchain bundle used to build, debug, and test Zephyr RTOS applications. It is not the Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) itself—it is the compiler and host‑tool environment that Zephyr expects to use. Also, it is not an IDE—IDEs (VS Code, Eclipse®, etc.) sit on top of the SDK.

Zephyr is especially compelling for Microchip devices if you:

  • Support multiple Microchip MCU families
  • Need connectivity, security, and power management
  • Want to future‑proof your software architecture
  • Prefer upstream, open‑source ecosystems over vendor‑locked frameworks

If you use Zephyr:

  • Microchip provides board definitions, drivers, and device support where available.
  • The Zephyr Project provides the RTOS, build system, and tooling.

Visit Zephyr's Supported Boards and Shields - Microchip Technology Inc. page.

Zephyr support is a key part of Microchip’s strategy to meet clients in modern, open ecosystems.

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SEGGER Embedded Studio™

SEGGER Embedded Studio provides support for a range of Microchip devices, especially those based on Arm Cortex-M and RISC-V architectures. Embedded Studio can be used to build, debug, and deploy applications on these devices, connecting via SEGGER J-Link debug probes.

Using SEGGER with Microchip devices makes the most sense when you:

  • Support multiple MCU vendors
  • Want faster debug/programming than entry‑level probes
  • Rely on advanced breakpoints or post‑mortem debugging
  • Are adopting VS Code, Zephyr, CMSIS, or RISC‑V
  • Want long‑term stability across toolchains

In this ecosystem:

  • Microchip provides device‑level content where applicable.
  • IAR provides and supports the IDE, compiler, and debugger.

Visit SEGGER's list of supported Microchip devices and development boards.

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Understanding Support Responsibilities

To avoid confusion, it’s important to understand who supports what when using partner tools.

Microchip supports:

  • Device silicon behavior and documentation
  • Microchip‑provided drivers, middleware, and board support
  • MPLAB Tools for VS Code, MCC, and Microchip examples

Partner vendors support:

  • Vendor-specific or open-source supported IDE functionality and user interface
  • Compilers and debuggers
  • Tool installation, licensing, and configuration

If an issue occurs, first determine whether it relates to Microchip‑provided device content or to the partner’s tools.

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