Microcontrollers
Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 2:11 pm
I have used most of the micro controllers and DSPs on the market, and I have to say that the experiences have led me to use Microchip's PIC series where they will fit the job at hand. I've got some reasons for this, of course. One is that they are cheap and easy to use -- they have some fairly fantastic on-chip I/O hardware that makes doing the things you do in an embedded control project easy -- the extra parts needed for a lot of things are pretty minimal in a lot of cases. They are fast as these things go. Microchip is also reliable -- when they bring out a new improved part, they continue to supply the old one for a long time, and further, make it easy to migrate. This might be why they have sold more processors than all other brands combined -- true. You probably have quite a few already, as they go into lamp dimmers, remotes, consumer electronics of all kinds and so on. There's one in my bread maker too. You can now get these with nifty things like built in USB and Ethernet interfaces, and even the eval boards are cheap enough to use in some projects. Ehternet versions give you a server that is platform independent out on your network that can be used for data acquisition and controls pretty cheaply.
The very basic software tools are free from Microchip, but if you want to work in C, you'll have to buy a compiler from somewhere. I'd advise against the Microchip one -- they are past their expertise level in the one I tried -- it was so bad I wanted my money back, actually, perhaps it has improved since. I'd say "avoid".
Here, we use CCS for the 18F series especially -- it's the best there is, no question for them. They provide a lot of nice drivers and example code you can reuse as well.
Some of the CCS stuff also runs in linux for programming the parts. Nice. Their IDE is fine, but hard to get running under Wine, however.
For the 16 series, and especially if you want to easily mix assembly and C with a real linker, HiTech is the (expensive) way to go. Their 18x compiler doesn't make as good code for the chips as the CCS one does, however, not even close. If I were stuck with just one tool setup, it'd probably be CCS.
Here is a link to a project we did here that uses a PIC and makes it easier for others to incorporate into things -- just add 5v and code! We are using these here in our science lab as data acquisition front ends, for counting counters, recording tank pressure, high voltage and so forth.
The very basic software tools are free from Microchip, but if you want to work in C, you'll have to buy a compiler from somewhere. I'd advise against the Microchip one -- they are past their expertise level in the one I tried -- it was so bad I wanted my money back, actually, perhaps it has improved since. I'd say "avoid".
Here, we use CCS for the 18F series especially -- it's the best there is, no question for them. They provide a lot of nice drivers and example code you can reuse as well.
Some of the CCS stuff also runs in linux for programming the parts. Nice. Their IDE is fine, but hard to get running under Wine, however.
For the 16 series, and especially if you want to easily mix assembly and C with a real linker, HiTech is the (expensive) way to go. Their 18x compiler doesn't make as good code for the chips as the CCS one does, however, not even close. If I were stuck with just one tool setup, it'd probably be CCS.
Here is a link to a project we did here that uses a PIC and makes it easier for others to incorporate into things -- just add 5v and code! We are using these here in our science lab as data acquisition front ends, for counting counters, recording tank pressure, high voltage and so forth.