Post by thread:[EE] Popular general purpose USB MCUs for hobbyist

I know there are some other USB MCUs other than PIC. For example, Silicon Labs C8051F320/321 seem to be nice USB MCU (they have US$11 demo board for sale and the US$29 demo kit for C8051F064 uses this USB MCU as the programmer/debugger). However the packaging is not so friendly to hobbyists (LQFP32 and MLP28). Philips LPC214x seem to be a nice family of USB MCUs. The package might be a problem (LQFP64). It is a bit strange that the Atmel USB MCUs are not so popular judging from Google search results even though their 8051 and AVR are quite popular. I am not so familiar with other family of MCUs like the Cypress PSoc and their USB MCUs but quite some of them are not really general purpose MCUs. Regards, Xiaofan

On Dec 20, 2005, at 7:36 PM, Chen Xiao Fan wrote: > I am not so familiar with other family of MCUs like > the Cypress PSoc and their USB MCUs but quite some > of them are not really general purpose MCUs. > I think the cypress parts are pretty "general purpose"; they're just not very popular for some reason. IIRC, most of the low-end parts are OTP and I don't even think they have uv-erasable versions. Freescale has some apparently little-known flash USB parts in the 68hc908JB8 series (and perhaps elsewhere. I thought I recalled a 14pin DIP, but the smallest JB8 is 20 pins...) BillW

William Chops Westfield wrote: > I think the cypress parts are pretty "general purpose"; they're > just not very popular for some reason. IIRC, most of the low-end > parts are OTP and I don't even think they have uv-erasable versions. I'm afraid that's not true. http://www.cypress.com/portal/server.pt?space=CommunityPage&control=SetCommunity&CommunityID=209&PageID=215&gid=9&fid=13&category=All&showall=false They have even Cypress's latest offering, WirelessUSB LP(TM) device combines very low power, long range (10m+), high data rate (1Mbps-GFSK or 250Kbps-DSSS) ... I was told that T.J. Rogers uses WirelessUSB for his personal automated wine-making Mike.

Mike, I used Cypress mcu PSoC and I can tell that it is very good chip. It has programmable analog components built in you can directly connect audio head to it, Flash based, windows compiler is only 100$. Andre Mike Singer wrote: {Quote hidden}>William Chops Westfield wrote: > > >>I think the cypress parts are pretty "general purpose"; they're >>just not very popular for some reason. IIRC, most of the low-end >>parts are OTP and I don't even think they have uv-erasable versions. >> >> > >I'm afraid that's not true. > >http://www.cypress.com/portal/server.pt?space=CommunityPage&control=SetCommunity&CommunityID=209&PageID=215&gid=9&fid=13&category=All&showall=false > >They have even >Cypress's latest offering, WirelessUSB LP(TM) device combines very low >power, long range (10m+), high data rate (1Mbps-GFSK or 250Kbps-DSSS) >... > >I was told that T.J. Rogers uses WirelessUSB for his personal >automated wine-making > >Mike. > > >

> I used Cypress mcu PSoC and I can tell that it is very good > chip.It has programmable analog components built in you can > directly connect audio head to it, Flash based, windows > compiler is only 100$. > > Andre Interesting comment. The features seems to be good but what I heard about PSoc is not that positive (very hard to program, current consumption and other issues). I have no experience with it though. And I am not so sure about the company Cypress either. The only thing I know is that the IDE is really taking a lot of resources and very slow to load. Regards, Xiaofan

Hi Chen, I had the chance to use the Cypress FX2 USB Chip (I used the 68013 chip) and I liked everything about the chip except for its price. I really think that re-enumeration is a very clever idea and that the chip itself actually supports Hi-Speed mode (480 Mbps) instead of just Full Speed (12Mbps) like the PIC USB chips. They actually have a lot of support for the chip, everything driver to firmware source code in C and app notes. Overall a nice little enhanced 8051 microcontroller w/ a very powerful USB hardware engine. The most impressive thing about the FX2 chip was the fact that there was a dedicated programmable FIFO (GPIF) that had a programmable parallel interface which allows it to communicate w/ outside parallel devices while bypassing the the slow microcontroller which was only 12 mips. This greatly improves ability to stream large quantity of data (to a hard drive etc...). The only thing that really bugged me about Cypress was that their C compiler (Keil, I think...) wasn't free and the trial edition had some severe size limitation to it, and the fact that the firmware isn't offered in assembly... ~Terry

Has anyone tried the Silicon Labs USB chips (uControllers)? They look pretty decent. On 12/24/05, Seitai Chen <spam_OUTseitai.chenTakeThisOuTgmail.com> wrote: {Quote hidden}> > Hi Chen, > > I had the chance to use the Cypress FX2 USB Chip (I used the 68013 > chip) and I liked everything about the chip except for its price. I > really think that re-enumeration is a very clever idea and that the chip > itself actually supports Hi-Speed mode (480 Mbps) instead of just Full > Speed (12Mbps) like the PIC USB chips. They actually have a lot of > support for the chip, everything driver to firmware source code in C and > app notes. Overall a nice little enhanced 8051 microcontroller w/ a very > powerful USB hardware engine. The most impressive thing about the FX2 > chip was the fact that there was a dedicated programmable FIFO (GPIF) > that had a programmable parallel interface which allows it to > communicate w/ outside parallel devices while bypassing the the slow > microcontroller which was only 12 mips. This greatly improves ability to > stream large quantity of data (to a hard drive etc...). > The only thing that really bugged me about Cypress was that their C > compiler (Keil, I think...) wasn't free and the trial edition had some > severe size limitation to it, and the fact that the firmware isn't > offered in assembly... > > ~Terry > > -