The Emulator POD is a board which carries an execution processor that emulates a behavior of the Target MCU being under control of an application program and the PICE commands. Depending on the particular type of the PICE-52, PODs use different kind of execution processors - emulation "Enhanced Hooks" or just "Hooks", special 'bond-out chips', and even standard 8XCX51 chips. The PICE Main Board controls a behavior of the emulating chips, i.e. it can stop and start its real-time running and has an access to some internal resources (RAM, registers, timers, etc.) when the execution processor is halted.

Besides the execution processor, each POD has few logic chips and some passive components. Each POD has two connectors on the top to stack it to the Main board and two connectors on the bottom to connect it to the package adapter.