As Gordon says, you are comparing apples and oranges :-)

PICs (RISC) have all those handy ADCs on-chip, and 8051 (CISC) has a lot more instructions to make calculations and data processing easy. I can't imagine trying to interface 'n' number of external ADCs to a 8051, and I won't use a PIC16/17xx for applications that require a lot of mul/divs and various addressing modes.

The requirements of the project should make the decision for you...

And adding a new twist to this thread...what about the Motorola 68h05 derivatives? They are CISC, have mul/div, multiple addressing modes as well as several on-chip peripherals like ADCs, timers, serial-IO etc. They seem to have the best of both worlds. What experiences have people on this forum had with this series, and how does it compare with 8051 and PIC? (or is this apples and oranges again?? :-> )

kundi