Re: Cypress PSOC programmers please comment.

Alistair George wrote:
Hello.
Myapp is for a PSC motor controller (speed and direction) there are many app notes for various chips eg Microchip AN967 gives decent details, code and so on. I am used to 8051 and with the given data from Microchip appnote AN967 would be able to impliment a similar control system.

I went to my chip vendor who suggested instead of staying with the 8051 family to try Cypress PSOC because he said it was so easy to use as to almost make the programmer redundant. However, in reality it seems that when one has unusual requirements there may be a similar workload as would be the case if I stuck with my tried and trusty 8051 variants (inlude Atmel Mega).


I am wondering if the learning curve for a newbie to create such a driver for PSOC would take me longer to implement than for the likes of familiar 8051 or AVR in C.

If anyone here has been using the PSOC system, and has previous experience with other micros I'd be particularly interested in your comments as to the development curve for new addons, and comments in general.
Kind regards,
Alistair.

My PSOC Experience is over a year old, so It may have improved.
The analog components are poor. they work, but are not hi precision.
The temperature range is lower that the PIC. The power consumption is quite high with the analog components on. The pin configure-ability is limited. You can not put any pin anywhere. The tools are good. You need them the number on configuration registers is huge. The learning curve is not too bad for the tools. The digital blocks worked very well. I liked them. The core does not have bit instructions, you have to mask. The compiler is $145 It is a great $145 compiler.
It is not a good $1000 compiler. The code is large. The interrupt handling is poor, you may have to do them in asm. The Tool box has a lot of pre-done code modules you can just click to include.
There was no bootloader, or room for one (in my app). It programs SPI like the PIC.
The limitations are glossed over in the docs. I had to trip over them.
Like the temperature sensor is useless. The chip draws enough current to rise 10-20C So you temperature is within that range.

I was disappointed with the chip.
There is a good web site for it www.psocdeveloper.com

The chip is a good choice for many things. Their marketing pushes it to hard. It is not the 8-bitter to replace all others.
.

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