MPLAB X on Apple Silicon | Prof. James Andrew Smith's Blog

A lot of people have been asking whether Microchip's MPLAB X runs on Apple Silicon machines. The answer is:

Yes.

I have just tested it out on my Apple M3 Pro MacBook Pro. It works fine so far. I have installed MPLAB X v6.20 and the XC8 compiler. I've hooked up a PIC16 board and successfully halted on a breakpoint, as you can see in this screenshot:

MPLAB X working on an Apple laptop with Apple Silicon. Debug breakpoint hit on a PIC16 board.

Now, it's important to point out that I have already set up Java and Rosetta on my machine. I don't know if this has any effect on the subsequent installation or running of MPLAB X. The Java JDK that I'm using is Eclipse Adoptium Temurin-21.0.1+12 and the OS architecture is os.arch = aarch64:

openjdk version "21.0.1" 2023-10-17 LTS
OpenJDK Runtime Environment Temurin-21.0.1+12 (build 21.0.1+12-LTS)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM Temurin-21.0.1+12 (build 21.0.1+12-LTS, mixed mode)

I didn't have to do anything special during the download and installation... at least nothing that I wouldn't normally do on previous installation of MPLAB X on either macOS or Windows.

So far, so good. I haven't tested the 32-bit or 16-bit tools at this stage as I don't have the need to, yet.

James Andrew Smith is a Professional Engineer and Associate Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department of York University's Lassonde School, with degrees in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alberta and McGill University. Previously a program director in biomedical engineering, his research background spans robotics, locomotion, human birth and engineering education. While on sabbatical in 2018-19 with his wife and kids he lived in Strasbourg, France and he taught at the INSA Strasbourg and Hochschule Karlsruhe and wrote about his personal and professional perspectives. James is a proponent of using social media to advocate for justice, equity, diversity and inclusion as well as evidence-based applications of research in the public sphere. You can find him on Twitter. Originally from Québec City, he now lives in Toronto, Canada.