Moving from 8051 to AVR

ziggy wrote:
> Looking for opinions on possibly moving from the 8051 family to the
> AVR's.
>
> Im an old timer and really prefer the Harvard a architecture, but i do
> realize that the '51 is getting pretty dated.
>
> It seems like the AVR is my logical step, but was wondering on what
> others out there my think, who have gone thru the change themselves.
>
> Tks all.

I suggest skipping the AVR as well. The ARM controllers are getting
increasingly smaller and cost effective. I havent been looking very
often at the ARM controllers and I recently came across Phillips site
and was very impressed with their LPC series ARM based controllers. the
noPC board seems to be an inexpensive dev board. Too bad the guy that
sells them is in the UK. I would consider purchasing one.

On 5 Feb 2006 15:05:01 -0800, "larwe" <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote:

>ziggy wrote:
>
>> Its mostly the concern of 'falling behind' a bit, and since the AVR AVR
>> seemed similar, it wouldn't be a big change..
>
>Mmmmmfff... this is a really tough one to comment on usefully. Yes,
>8051 is old and scraggly. AVR is clean and modern by comparison. But
>unless you have a real project that would benefit in a concrete way
>from AVR, I would not advise moving.
>
>(Price is a consideration... dollar for feature, I think 8051 variants
>will beat AVRs in the high end at least - maybe not down at the 8-pin
>end though).
>
>If you are planning some massive upheaval like migrating from asm to C
>as your language of choice, then yes - run, do not walk to a modern
>architecture like AVR or MSP430. Otherwise, a careful study of actual
>dollar benefits is necessary.

I would add that 8051 cores are available from such a wide variety of
sources, too.  They are quite modern, in many of these incarnations.
Even Atmel has them, if that is one of the reasons ziggy is
considering a change towards AVR.

If you already have excellent development tools for the 8051 family,
part of the cost of shifting will be both the new costs for equipment
as well as the learning curve and possibly for developing software
that may be needed to fill in the gaps.  The change takes time and
money and always adds risk.

For merely a "concern of 'falling behind' a bit" I don't think I'd
change.

Or is this about getting ready for a job move?

Jon

Hi ziggy,

ziggy wrote:

> Looking for opinions on possibly moving from the 8051 family to the 
> AVR's.
> 
> Im an old timer and really prefer the Harvard a architecture, but i
> do realize that the '51 is getting pretty dated.
> 
> It seems like the AVR is my logical step, but was wondering on what 
> others out there my think, who have gone thru the change themselves.

Not really the change, but did some comparison on different
architectures including even modern versions of '51. Taking into
account the quality and price of the toolchain i finished up with AVR
risc. The gcc is free, eclipse is a great IDE which i use for Java too
and the range of processors programmable in C ranges from some 8-pin
versions up to large ones like ATMega256.

Regards, Kurt

-- 
Kurt Harders
PiN -Pr�senz im Netz GITmbH
mailto:news@kurt-harders.de
http://www.pin-gmbh.com

ziggy wrote:
> Looking for opinions on possibly moving from the 8051 family to the 
> AVR's.
> 
> Im an old timer and really prefer the Harvard a architecture, but i do 
> realize that the '51 is getting pretty dated.
> 
> It seems like the AVR is my logical step, but was wondering on what 
> others out there my think, who have gone thru the change themselves.

  You do realise you are trading a multisourced core, for a single 
sourced one ?
  I don't think there are any USB FLASH AVRs, and No AVRs with 16-24 bit 
ADC.... ?  Priority interrupts, Boolean Opcodes... Oh dear..... ?

  Single clock C51 FLASH variants hit 33MHz, 35MHz, 50MHz, 66MHz, 100MHz
from various vendors - rather faster than the AVR.

  So, why bother ?

  Stick with the 80c51, and if you want to play with something different
enough to be worthwhile look at the ARMs.
  Even if you do not need the Core, you can find the peripherals on an 
ARM have better performance : eg wider counters, some DMA, better FIFOs
etc, than most 8 bit peripheral sets.

-jg

larwe wrote:


> The reason I ask this question is that you MIGHT be better served by
> leapfrogging AVR entirely and moving into the low-end ARM arena. In
> this case, your code will be easier to migrate into larger, faster,
> niftier parts. It's certainly worth thinking about.


Sub-Euro pricings for simple AVRs are had to beat.

Rene
-- 
Ing.Buero R.Tschaggelar - http://www.ibrtses.com
& commercial newsgroups - http://www.talkto.net

On 2006-02-06, Jim Granville <no.spam@designtools.co.nz> wrote:
> ziggy wrote:
>> Looking for opinions on possibly moving from the 8051 family to the 
>> AVR's.
>> 
>> Im an old timer and really prefer the Harvard a architecture, but i do 
>> realize that the '51 is getting pretty dated.
>> 
>> It seems like the AVR is my logical step, but was wondering on what 
>> others out there my think, who have gone thru the change themselves.
>
>   You do realise you are trading a multisourced core, for a single 
> sourced one?

That would be a concern, except that nobody I know solders
cores to boards. :) If vendor X discontinues the 8051 based
uConroller I'm using so that I have to switch to something
that's not pin-and-register compatible, then it doesn't really
matter that much that the new part has the same core.  Changing
the pinout and perhipheral-interface is where all the work
goes.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  Isn't this my STOP?!
                                  at               
                               visi.com            

On Mon, 06 Feb 2006 15:21:59 -0000, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com>
wrote:

>On 2006-02-06, Jim Granville <no.spam@designtools.co.nz> wrote:
>> ziggy wrote:
>>> Looking for opinions on possibly moving from the 8051 family to the 
>>> AVR's.
>>> 
>>> Im an old timer and really prefer the Harvard a architecture, but i do 
>>> realize that the '51 is getting pretty dated.
>>> 
>>> It seems like the AVR is my logical step, but was wondering on what 
>>> others out there my think, who have gone thru the change themselves.
>>
>>   You do realise you are trading a multisourced core, for a single 
>> sourced one?
>
>That would be a concern, except that nobody I know solders
>cores to boards. :) If vendor X discontinues the 8051 based
>uConroller I'm using so that I have to switch to something
>that's not pin-and-register compatible, then it doesn't really
>matter that much that the new part has the same core.  Changing
>the pinout and perhipheral-interface is where all the work
>goes.

yes, but...

You still have all your software tool investments, both time and
money, to consider.  While the exact instance of a particular part may
change, it is still a big advantage to still use the same development
tools for the next incarnation of a similar core that does NOT require
a software tool change-out.

I do NOT consider the idea of shifting from an 8051 cpu, where I've
invested my own time in learning every particular about the
instruction set as well as the software tools I'm using to target it,
to another cpu core where I will have to spend substantial time
building up a new internal mental model and instruction set
familiarity as well as making new discoveries with a new tool set, to
be something to brush aside as trivial.

In other words, staying with the same core even if it means different
peripherals on the 8051, a different footprint, etc., has some value.

Jon

Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2006-02-06, Jim Granville <no.spam@designtools.co.nz> wrote:
> 
>>ziggy wrote:
>>
>>>Looking for opinions on possibly moving from the 8051 family to the 
>>>AVR's.
>>>
>>>Im an old timer and really prefer the Harvard a architecture, but i do 
>>>realize that the '51 is getting pretty dated.
>>>
>>>It seems like the AVR is my logical step, but was wondering on what 
>>>others out there my think, who have gone thru the change themselves.
>>
>>  You do realise you are trading a multisourced core, for a single 
>>sourced one?
> 
> 
> That would be a concern, except that nobody I know solders
> cores to boards. :) If vendor X discontinues the 8051 based
> uConroller I'm using so that I have to switch to something
> that's not pin-and-register compatible, then it doesn't really
> matter that much that the new part has the same core.  

Wot, No Smiley ?

> Changing the pinout and perhipheral-interface is where all the work
> goes.

  Single sourced bites in many ways:
There is the serious EOL one, then there is allocation (remember that?),
  Plus you have _new_design restrictions, after locking yourself into a 
set to tools, and core : Want a Flash+USB for that new widget; oops - or 
how about higher precision ADC ? Sorry....
... Then you have the vendor simply 'terminating' devices, thinking the 
customers are captive. [ == Short design life ]

  A live example is the 90S2313 -> Tiny2313:
We have been getting a LOT of requests for 90S2313 devices, from
users who do NOT want the migration aggravation of the 'new' device.
  The Tiny2313 is a nice device, but there are 11 pages of
'migration notes', and new qualification testing needed....

  Mostly, companies design staff are too busy on new designs, to re-spin
an old design simply for production qualify, so purchasing keep trying
to buy the older devices, that work fine... until they cannot...

-jg

"larwe" <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> skrev i meddelandet 
news:1139179150.086768.21700@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>> It seems like the AVR is my logical step, but was wondering on what
>> others out there my think, who have gone thru the change themselves.
>
> I can't say I've gone through the change, but I have migrated somewhat
> from 8051 to AVR ;)
>

> The reason I ask this question is that you MIGHT be better served by
> leapfrogging AVR entirely and moving into the low-end ARM arena. In
> this case, your code will be easier to migrate into larger, faster,
> niftier parts. It's certainly worth thinking about.
>


The AVR will allow migration to smaller, lower power, *cheaper* devices
which is not to be snuffed at...

-- 
Best Regards,
Ulf Samuelsson
This is intended to be my personal opinion which may,
or may bot be shared by my employer Atmel Nordic 

>  You do realise you are trading a multisourced core, for a single sourced 
> one ?
>  I don't think there are any USB FLASH AVRs, and No AVRs with 16-24 bit 
> ADC.... ?  Priority interrupts, Boolean Opcodes... Oh dear..... ?

So you need to talk to your Atmel sales person a little more often ...

>
>  Single clock C51 FLASH variants hit 33MHz, 35MHz, 50MHz, 66MHz, 100MHz
> from various vendors - rather faster than the AVR.
>
>  So, why bother ?
>



-- 
Best Regards,
Ulf Samuelsson
This is intended to be my personal opinion which may,
or may bot be shared by my employer Atmel Nordic AB