Modelworks
Lifer
It seems some manufacturers are listening more to the hobby market or those without lots of money to spend on getting into micro-controllers. Microchip has released their line of pic32 chips in DIP format, that means easy use for home users.
I don't work for them but have used their chips for years. If you go to their site and register your email they even send free samples, so you can get 3 of the chips for nothing. Right now they are in pretty heavy demand, I couldn't even get chips from mouser that I got from microchip as samples.
The chips I got are pic32mx110f016b. So what is the big deal with the pic32 ?
40 MHz MIPS32 M4K
1.56 DMIPS/MHz (Dhrystone 2.1) performance
Single-cycle (MAC) 32x16 and two-cycle 32x32 multiply
0.5 mA/MHz dynamic current (typical)
Data communication: I2S, LJ, RJ, DSP modes
10-bit 1.1 Msps rate with one S&H
Supports mTouch™ capacitive touch sensing
Provides high-resolution time measurement (1 ns)
On-chip temperature measurement capability
Up to three Analog Comparator modules
Five General Purpose Timers
Real-Time Clock and Calendar
Two UART modules (10 Mbps)
- Supports LIN 2.0 protocols and IrDA® support
Two 4-wire SPI modules (20 Mbps)
Two I2C modules (up to 1 Mbaud) with SMBus support
Parallel Master Port (PMP)
Four channels of hardware DMA with automatic data
size detection
5V-tolerant pins
In-circuit and in-application programming
4-wire MIPS® Enhanced JTAG interface
Unlimited program and six complex data breakpoints
IEEE 1149.2-compatible (JTAG) boundary scan
You get all the above for about $3 a chip. The main downside of the chips I have now are the memory , 16KB program and 3KB data, but they have other chips in the line that have up to 512KB ram and also support multiple USB channels. The chips can also execute code from things like sd cards so memory becomes less of an issue.
The chip has an internal oscillator so no need for an external crystal unless you use the RTCC , that needs the standard 32.768Khz crystal. Then you just need a few .01uf decoupling capacitors and a 4-10uf cap for the vcap pin and you are ready to use it. I use a pickit to program them but you can use a jtag and there are free jtag plans on the internet that use a parallel port.
For software the compiler is GCC and there are already some great libraries. How powerful is the chip ? It is powerful enough that it can decode flac audio on the chip . Some other tidbits in the libraries are things like vector and dsp routines and h.264 video operations.
I'm seriously considering making it my main platform now. The 32 bit chip price is getting so low that using the old 8/16 bit chips just isn't justified unless you are doing something really low cost.
http://www.microchip.com/en_us/family/32bit/
I don't work for them but have used their chips for years. If you go to their site and register your email they even send free samples, so you can get 3 of the chips for nothing. Right now they are in pretty heavy demand, I couldn't even get chips from mouser that I got from microchip as samples.
The chips I got are pic32mx110f016b. So what is the big deal with the pic32 ?
40 MHz MIPS32 M4K
1.56 DMIPS/MHz (Dhrystone 2.1) performance
Single-cycle (MAC) 32x16 and two-cycle 32x32 multiply
0.5 mA/MHz dynamic current (typical)
Data communication: I2S, LJ, RJ, DSP modes
10-bit 1.1 Msps rate with one S&H
Supports mTouch™ capacitive touch sensing
Provides high-resolution time measurement (1 ns)
On-chip temperature measurement capability
Up to three Analog Comparator modules
Five General Purpose Timers
Real-Time Clock and Calendar
Two UART modules (10 Mbps)
- Supports LIN 2.0 protocols and IrDA® support
Two 4-wire SPI modules (20 Mbps)
Two I2C modules (up to 1 Mbaud) with SMBus support
Parallel Master Port (PMP)
Four channels of hardware DMA with automatic data
size detection
5V-tolerant pins
In-circuit and in-application programming
4-wire MIPS® Enhanced JTAG interface
Unlimited program and six complex data breakpoints
IEEE 1149.2-compatible (JTAG) boundary scan
You get all the above for about $3 a chip. The main downside of the chips I have now are the memory , 16KB program and 3KB data, but they have other chips in the line that have up to 512KB ram and also support multiple USB channels. The chips can also execute code from things like sd cards so memory becomes less of an issue.
The chip has an internal oscillator so no need for an external crystal unless you use the RTCC , that needs the standard 32.768Khz crystal. Then you just need a few .01uf decoupling capacitors and a 4-10uf cap for the vcap pin and you are ready to use it. I use a pickit to program them but you can use a jtag and there are free jtag plans on the internet that use a parallel port.
For software the compiler is GCC and there are already some great libraries. How powerful is the chip ? It is powerful enough that it can decode flac audio on the chip . Some other tidbits in the libraries are things like vector and dsp routines and h.264 video operations.
I'm seriously considering making it my main platform now. The 32 bit chip price is getting so low that using the old 8/16 bit chips just isn't justified unless you are doing something really low cost.
http://www.microchip.com/en_us/family/32bit/
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