MSP 430 opinions?

To help narrow my search, could anyone who has used TI's MSP430 please
offer a brief opinion as to the advantages, if any, of it over other
alternatives for DSP?

Jim

MSP430 in NOT a DSP.

What is it you want to know ???

Jim Sanders wrote:
> To help narrow my search, could anyone who has used TI's MSP430 please
> offer a brief opinion as to the advantages, if any, of it over other
> alternatives for DSP?
> 
> Jim

On Sat, 03 Jul 2004 08:20:54 +1000, the renowned Jim Sanders
<jim102@aol.com> wrote:

>To help narrow my search, could anyone who has used TI's MSP430 please
>offer a brief opinion as to the advantages, if any, of it over other
>alternatives for DSP?
>
>Jim

Some models have a 16 x 16 hardware multiplier. 

Best regards, 
Spehro Pefhany
-- 
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Also some models have very low power consumption, which is nifty in some
cases.
Good Luck.
Wenhai

"Jim Sanders" <jim102@aol.com> wrote in message
news:5knbe095uhd67goqjv7680630t2v7gji5i@4ax.com...
> To help narrow my search, could anyone who has used TI's MSP430 please
> offer a brief opinion as to the advantages, if any, of it over other
> alternatives for DSP?
>
> Jim

On Sat, 03 Jul 2004 08:20:54 +1000, Jim Sanders wrote:

> To help narrow my search, could anyone who has used TI's MSP430 please
> offer a brief opinion as to the advantages, if any, of it over other
> alternatives for DSP?
> 
> Jim

I really enjoy the msp430. We use them at work for most of our
microcontroller needs. They come in many pinouts from 20 pins on up. The
MLP package is very small. The assembly language is straight forward RISC
type. There is a freeware gcc compiler for it called mspgcc, which is
fairly mature and has a very friendly listserv. The development boards are
fairly cheap and you can get them from olimex (just google search for
olimex msp430). It's also fairly easy to make your own boards to play
with, if you know how to do pcb layout at all. Also you don't want to use
these for DSP's unless you have very light duty processing needs, much
better to use one of the SHARC family dsp's or something from TI.

D

Hi Jim,

The MSP430 offers some great features that others don't. You can, for 
example, keep a realtime clock running in there and it still consumes 
just a few microamps. But one word of caution: It is intended for 3.3V 
apps and lower, you cannot easily use them for 5V stuff. This can also 
make driving larger FETs a bit harder.

Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

In article <fv6ce01u6tienv1tmkrp42ihtoj83b1nt5@4ax.com>, 
speffSNIP@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat says...
> On Sat, 03 Jul 2004 08:20:54 +1000, the renowned Jim Sanders
> <jim102@aol.com> wrote:
> 
> >To help narrow my search, could anyone who has used TI's MSP430 please
> >offer a brief opinion as to the advantages, if any, of it over other
> >alternatives for DSP?
> >
> >Jim
> 
> Some models have a 16 x 16 hardware multiplier. 
>

IIRC, the clock rate (at least in the MSP43F149 I've used) tops out
at 8MHz.  If you're planning to use it for DSP,  your input signals
better not have a very high bandwidth.  I do like the fact that it
has two serial interfaces (which can be UARTS or Synchronous),
a 12-bit ADC, and pretty capable timers.

Mark Borgerson

Jim Sanders wrote:
> To help narrow my search, could anyone who has used TI's MSP430 please
> offer a brief opinion as to the advantages, if any, of it over other
> alternatives for DSP?
> 
> Jim

MSP430 most would call a Microcontroller, not a DSP.
If you really want DSP, look at
http://focus.ti.com/docs/pr/pressrelease.jhtml?prelId=sc04158

TI now have FLASH, ROM, and RAM variant offerings in this family.
Why RAM ? - it boots from cheap SPI memory, and means they
can run faster than Flash.

-jg