This paper deals with the finite wordlength effect on the performance of digital PID controllers. The finite wordlength, one of the major limitation factors in digital controllers, results on two kinds of quantization error : the signal quantization error and the coefficient quantization error. This paper derives the variance of the plant output due to the signal quantization error. Using stability margins as performance criterion, the statistical wordlength concept is adopted for coefficient wordlength selection. Finally, the experimental results exhibit satisfactory performance of the digital PID controller with statistical coefficient wordlength.