Freescale (formerly Motorola)

I was wondering why there are so few
threads about the Freescale MCUs.
They don't seem to be very popular,
or am I wrong? I'm about to embark
on a small embedded project, based
on a Freescale HC08GB60 (a timer
with a couple of bells and whistles)
and because threads quite often deal
with issues about PICs, 8051s and
other small 8-bitters, a little doubt has
crept up whether Freescale is the right
choice.
Can it be the price?
Then perhaps the features that a
particular Freescale MCU offers?
The hardware support?
Development software?
Comments, please...

Cheers

Waldemar

"WaldemarIII" <bleek004@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:41988c66$0$8326$1b2cd167@news.wanadoo.nl...
>I was wondering why there are so few
> threads about the Freescale MCUs.
> They don't seem to be very popular,
> or am I wrong? . . . snip. . . Cheers
> Waldemar

I think they are more popular than people realize. I think that  Motorola or 
Freescale haven't been doing a lot of advertising in magazines or
such that I notice. Of course I haven't bought a lot of MCU types of 
magazines lately. But I am signed up for Freescale's email notification 
services.
The last big promotion they did a couple of years ago was the huge 
68HC908QT4 giveaway EVAL board promotion,
which was pretty neat. The 68HC908QT4 piqued my interest as it is a small 8 
pin MCU with an ADC and UART built in, and 4k of Flash.
I still think they have the only 8 pin MCU with a ADC built in.
I think most users of these chips are getting support for them elsewhere.
The 68HC908xxxx series chips are so similar to HC11's that I think most 
people get support through other sources
that cater to the HC11's.

I am a big fan of the DSP56F800 series myself. So if I have a question or 
problem I get my support through www.newmicros.com.
Several of these chips are perfect for motion control, CNC, robotics 
applications. They have something like
six PWM channels, three or four quad timers, built in quadrature decoders, 
ADC's, etc.
Several other chips are excellent for different kinds of DSP applications as 
well.
These are 16 bit processors that run at up to 80 mhz clock speed. Some new 
chips run up to 120mhz clock.
The tools that are available aren't as good as some other chips, but they 
have a nice selection to choose from.
Peter Gray has the Small C compiler http://petegray.newmicros.com/ for these 
chips.
www.newmicros.com has tremendous support for their boards using these chips, 
plus they have the ISOMAX system and MAXForth (for other chips as well), 
plus a nice assember too.
www.forth.com has a nice Forth compiler (for just about all the different 
MCU's) too.
www.metrowerks.com has the Codewarrior C++ compiler.

For your chips www.imagecraft.com has an excellent C compiler that works 
well. I used it with the little tiny 68HC908xxxx chips myself. Plus 
www.metrowerks.com has a Codewarrior version that works well too. Freescale 
through Metrowerks offers a free 4k or 8k limited compiler for these chips 
depending on which chip your using. I think it is 4k limited for the 
68HC908QT4 (et cetera) types of MCU's and 8k for the DSP56F800 series. But 
it could have changed recently.
I think one could modify or get a version of the GnuCC compiler for these as 
well.

WaldemarIII wrote:

> I was wondering why there are so few
> threads about the Freescale MCUs.
> They don't seem to be very popular,
> or am I wrong? 

Yes, you are wrong, Mot/Freescale is one of the biggest suppliers of
microcontrollers. The reason there are so few threads about these is
that everything about them is so very well documented that people just
don't have any problems to discuss about these wonderful semiconductors.

Stefan

"WaldemarIII" <bleek004@hotmail.com> wrote:

>I was wondering why there are so few
>threads about the Freescale MCUs.

because Motorola/Freescale seems to prefer big customers (e.g.
automotive), with direct support etc. and those rarely write in
newsgroups.

The devices are not so simple to get in small quantities, there are no
"free" and good tools. You need to spend some money to have fun (e.g.
for a BDM interface).

[...]

>Can it be the price?
>Then perhaps the features that a

IMHO the performance/price ratio is similar to other uCs.

And the BDM interface is great (non-intrusive access to memory while
target is running).


-- 
Oliver Betz, Muenchen (oliverbetz.de)

> 
>>I was wondering why there are so few
>>threads about the Freescale MCUs.

they have own (non public) groups in Yahoo
not listed in the public Yahoo directory.
E.g. groups.yahoo.com/group/68hc05_08/ and 
they recently started a new and own community page
at www.freegeeks.net Further everybode can sign at the freescale webpage 
for registration and mail to the freescale product specialists worldwide.

> because Motorola/Freescale seems to prefer big customers (e.g.
> automotive), with direct support etc. and those rarely write in
> newsgroups.
> 
> The devices are not so simple to get in small quantities, 

Last weeks they introduced the new feature to order sample quantities 
at the webpage for free ... 

For information :
- The QT4 doesn't contains an UART ; on the QT demo board, it was a software
UART
- CodeWarrior (Metrowerks) is now limited to 16Ko.

Regards,
Yvan

******************************
          YBDesign
      Yvan BOURNE
   Tel : 04.92.75.82.81
  Fax : 04.92.75.82.82
Portable : 06.88.08.27.42
  http://www.ybdesign.fr
******************************


Earl Bollinger <earlwbollinger@comcast.net> a &#4294967295;crit dans le message :
6KOdnWCqb_56PQXcRVn-sQ@comcast.com...
> "WaldemarIII" <bleek004@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:41988c66$0$8326$1b2cd167@news.wanadoo.nl...
> >I was wondering why there are so few
> > threads about the Freescale MCUs.
> > They don't seem to be very popular,
> > or am I wrong? . . . snip. . . Cheers
> > Waldemar
>
> I think they are more popular than people realize. I think that  Motorola
or
> Freescale haven't been doing a lot of advertising in magazines or
> such that I notice. Of course I haven't bought a lot of MCU types of
> magazines lately. But I am signed up for Freescale's email notification
> services.
> The last big promotion they did a couple of years ago was the huge
> 68HC908QT4 giveaway EVAL board promotion,
> which was pretty neat. The 68HC908QT4 piqued my interest as it is a small
8
> pin MCU with an ADC and UART built in, and 4k of Flash.
> I still think they have the only 8 pin MCU with a ADC built in.
> I think most users of these chips are getting support for them elsewhere.
> The 68HC908xxxx series chips are so similar to HC11's that I think most
> people get support through other sources
> that cater to the HC11's.
>
> I am a big fan of the DSP56F800 series myself. So if I have a question or
> problem I get my support through www.newmicros.com.
> Several of these chips are perfect for motion control, CNC, robotics
> applications. They have something like
> six PWM channels, three or four quad timers, built in quadrature decoders,
> ADC's, etc.
> Several other chips are excellent for different kinds of DSP applications
as
> well.
> These are 16 bit processors that run at up to 80 mhz clock speed. Some new
> chips run up to 120mhz clock.
> The tools that are available aren't as good as some other chips, but they
> have a nice selection to choose from.
> Peter Gray has the Small C compiler http://petegray.newmicros.com/ for
these
> chips.
> www.newmicros.com has tremendous support for their boards using these
chips,
> plus they have the ISOMAX system and MAXForth (for other chips as well),
> plus a nice assember too.
> www.forth.com has a nice Forth compiler (for just about all the different
> MCU's) too.
> www.metrowerks.com has the Codewarrior C++ compiler.
>
> For your chips www.imagecraft.com has an excellent C compiler that works
> well. I used it with the little tiny 68HC908xxxx chips myself. Plus
> www.metrowerks.com has a Codewarrior version that works well too.
Freescale
> through Metrowerks offers a free 4k or 8k limited compiler for these chips
> depending on which chip your using. I think it is 4k limited for the
> 68HC908QT4 (et cetera) types of MCU's and 8k for the DSP56F800 series. But
> it could have changed recently.
> I think one could modify or get a version of the GnuCC compiler for these
as
> well.
>
>
>
>

"Yvan BOURNE" <yvan@no_spam_ybdesign.fr> wrote:

>For information :
>- The QT4 doesn't contains an UART ; on the QT demo board, it was a software
>UART
>- CodeWarrior (Metrowerks) is now limited to 16Ko.

but only CW for the HC12!? HC08 still 4K AFAIK, isn't it?

Oliver
-- 
Oliver Betz, Muenchen (oliverbetz.de)

> I still think they have the only 8 pin MCU with a ADC built in.

Not by a long shot. I know Microchip has several - see 
http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1335&dDocName=en010114 
for instance.

cheers,

Al

Al Borowski <al.borowski@EraseThis.gmail.com> wrote:

>
>> I still think they have the only 8 pin MCU with a ADC built in.
>
>Not by a long shot. I know Microchip has several - see 
>http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1335&dDocName=en010114 
>for instance.

And for those who care, Microchip has some 6-pin MCUs.

http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=2060

--
Dan Henry

On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 18:18:39 -0700, Dan Henry <dhenry@sprynet.com>
wrote:

[...]
>
>And for those who care, Microchip has some 6-pin MCUs.

None with ADC unfortunately.  I had a perfect app, if such existed.
One analog in, one discrete out, a tiny bit of code, and presto...  Oh
well.

Regards,

                               -=Dave
-- 
Change is inevitable, progress is not.