Re: uC selection

On Mar 16, 2:02 am, "Jon Slaughter" <Jon_Slaugh...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"john jardine" <john.jard...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

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"Jon Slaughter" <Jon_Slaugh...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Currently I use microchip pics but I'm looking possibly to switch, but
what?
Is Atmel worth it? What about TI? I'm looking for something similar to
microchip but more of a commercial aspect. I have never seen any
commercial
device that uses a pic and I assume there are reasons for this? It seems
that pic's are only for hobbiests so using them in a commercial product
is
a
no-no?

Upto the other month I'd used Pics for over 10 years, resulting in large
numbers being used in a mainly industrial environment. Surely that's
commercial use?.
If quantities are vast ('consumer', e.g. mice) then Pics in the form of
(say) Holtek parts turn up but are then not directly recognisable.
Look in suppliers catalogues under "micros". There's maybe 10 micro types
on
offer and that's what industry will be using in it's products. Quantities
out there inversely proportional to page pricing.
I recently changed to the Atmel AVR series and found it a vast improvement
on the Pic. Not a commercial decision, just that the AVR is clean enough
to
not have to waste intellectual effort wrangling with Pic style
idiosyncrasies, hence leaving more quality time with the
'reason-for-the-product-the-first-place' analogue bits.

The more I get into the PIC the more I dislike it instead of the reverse.
Although what I do like aobut it is the large number of perepherials built
in... but the C libraries are crappy(essentially just macro wrappers of the
assembly code instead of actually being much more useful) and its a pain to
program inassembly because of its architecture(at least from what I'm used
too with x86))

If PICs are annoying you for some reason, then by all means change.
But don't change for the other reasons you have mentioned.

I've read some comparisions and it seems that the AVR is a little better but
I'm not sure. I can deal with a few issues with PIC but some are might be
just too much. For example, I was messing with the ADC library and some of
the macro's in the adc.h header were renamed wrong when using standard
bitflag combinding(not the AND_OR which was named right and corresponded to
the "docs"). Another is that one of the functions do not set the
unimplemented bits to 0 resulting in the ADC module not working(luckily I
made a mistake and set them to 0 and it worked so I didn't spend a week
trying to figure out why). Of course I spected the unimplemented bits to
allow for either 0 or 1 but I guess not... ;/

My first introduction with AVR was horrible.
Not only did the Atmel development tool not properly support the chip
I wanted to use (ATtiny26), but I found out it was possible (and easy)
to accidently lock out the in-system programming feature. Thus if your
chip is soldered to the board and you manage to disable it, you are
stuffed. Only a parallel programmer can resurrect it. I can't imagine
anything worse in a microcontroller design.
I'm not sure if this has been fixed or what other parts are like, but
beware.

Dave.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: uC selection
    ... that pic's are only for hobbiests so using them in a commercial product ... There's maybe 10 micro types ... I recently changed to the Atmel AVR series and found it a vast improvement ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: Re:Need small micro dev kit (was: W4OAH de N9NEO)
    ... Andy told me to take a look at the Pic products, ... engineer many years ago that is well connected with microchip. ... I will of course take a close look at the AVR ... it will cost you more than a newer, ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: uC selection
    ... Is Atmel worth it? ... similar to microchip but more of a commercial aspect. ... commercial product is a no-no? ... Bob ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • uC selection
    ... Currently I use microchip pics but I'm looking possibly to switch, ... Is Atmel worth it? ... that pic's are only for hobbiests so using them in a commercial product is a ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
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