Cypress PSOC programmers please comment.

Travis Hayes wrote:
> "Alistair George" <noname@xtra.co.nz> wrote in message
> news:44b82f8d$1@news.orcon.net.nz...
>> 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.
> 
>     The PSoC is a 8051 core, more or less.  They've added a bunch of
> configuration and paging registers to fit in all the things the chips can
> do.  For the price, they are good chips; I like them a lot to replace
> low-precision op-amps, comparators, etc.  I've uses them as a slave display
> driver by putting a UART and a timer in, and used them as active filters by
> plugging in a 4-pole LPF with some gain on other occasions.
>     They are very low cost in quantity; most projects I've used them in end
> up with the chip in die form, no external crystal.  My stuff is normally
> room temperature, so that's not an issue.  The wide supply voltage is a plus
> (2.7-5.5V), making it easy and cheap to do battery-powered devices.
>     The architecture is limited, being based on the 8051.  Their tools are
> reliable, but quirky.  Expect to spend some time figuring out how to really
> use them.
>     Cypress does have some PSoC-family parts that do USB, and 2.4GHz radio.
> They have announced plans for improved parts with ARM-based cores and
> higher-precision analog later this year.
> 
> -Travis
> 
> 

The PSoC is most Certainly NOT a 8051 core.  It is the core from the low 
end Cyress USB chips.  It would be great if it was.  Then it could be 
used with 8051 tools.  The core has its own pluses and minuses.  It has 
some features like the 8052 core.  But you would expect the designers to 
pick features they liked.  I feel the lack of bit instructions makes the 
code bigger.

I would put it more in a PIC16 "Class" then 8052.  Due to the Smaller 
memory.  TI and Silab have better analog sections in their chips. But 
there cost more and do not have the blocks.

The chip certainly has many uses.  Cypress should accept what it can not 
do.  The "Data Sheets" should have the information.  You should not have 
to look the the block data to guess if it is good.  The power 
consumption is high they give that info now, but back then they did not.

As for me I would have to be dead sure it would work.  My boss would 
kill me if I used it again and failed.

It is certainly a useful chip for the right applications.

Neil wrote:
> Travis Hayes wrote:
>> "Alistair George" <noname@xtra.co.nz> wrote in message
>> news:44b82f8d$1@news.orcon.net.nz...
>>> 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.
>>
>>     The PSoC is a 8051 core, more or less.  They've added a bunch of
>> configuration and paging registers to fit in all the things the chips can
>> do.  For the price, they are good chips; I like them a lot to replace
>> low-precision op-amps, comparators, etc.  I've uses them as a slave 
>> display
>> driver by putting a UART and a timer in, and used them as active 
>> filters by
>> plugging in a 4-pole LPF with some gain on other occasions.
>>     They are very low cost in quantity; most projects I've used them 
>> in end
>> up with the chip in die form, no external crystal.  My stuff is normally
>> room temperature, so that's not an issue.  The wide supply voltage is 
>> a plus
>> (2.7-5.5V), making it easy and cheap to do battery-powered devices.
>>     The architecture is limited, being based on the 8051.  Their tools 
>> are
>> reliable, but quirky.  Expect to spend some time figuring out how to 
>> really
>> use them.
>>     Cypress does have some PSoC-family parts that do USB, and 2.4GHz 
>> radio.
>> They have announced plans for improved parts with ARM-based cores and
>> higher-precision analog later this year.
>>
>> -Travis
>>
>>
> 
> The PSoC is most Certainly NOT a 8051 core.  It is the core from the low 
> end Cyress USB chips.  It would be great if it was.  Then it could be 
> used with 8051 tools.  The core has its own pluses and minuses.  It has 
> some features like the 8052 core.  But you would expect the designers to 
> pick features they liked.  I feel the lack of bit instructions makes the 
> code bigger.
> 
> I would put it more in a PIC16 "Class" then 8052.  Due to the Smaller 
> memory.  TI and Silab have better analog sections in their chips. But 
> there cost more and do not have the blocks.
> 
> The chip certainly has many uses.  Cypress should accept what it can not 
> do.  The "Data Sheets" should have the information.  You should not have 
> to look the the block data to guess if it is good.  The power 
> consumption is high they give that info now, but back then they did not.
> 
> As for me I would have to be dead sure it would work.  My boss would 
> kill me if I used it again and failed.
> 
> It is certainly a useful chip for the right applications.
> 
I'm convinced its perfect for my app. The design specification has a 
huge wishlist that is only partially going to be incorporated at the 
start. I was blown away by the tutorial for the PSOC which of course 
starts off by expounding forth on how good it is! Future upgrading of 
specifications means the Programmable System fits well with me.
Did the first simple course today to switch LED on and off. Came up with 
a warning which made me hunt high and low until I found in the PSOC 
forum that 'you ignore this warning' hmmmmm.

Aubrey I know the C compiler is included in the price, but unfortunately 
its just window dressing to me for now due to financial constraints. 
Appreciate the warning you offer on older IDE.
Kind regards,
Alistair.

"Neil" <NeilKurzm@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:BkDug.403893$Fs1.316496@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> Travis Hayes wrote:
> > "Alistair George" <noname@xtra.co.nz> wrote in message
> > news:44b82f8d$1@news.orcon.net.nz...
> >> 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.
> >
> >     The PSoC is a 8051 core, more or less.  They've added a bunch of
> > configuration and paging registers to fit in all the things the chips
can
> > do.  For the price, they are good chips; I like them a lot to replace

> The PSoC is most Certainly NOT a 8051 core.  It is the core from the low
> end Cyress USB chips.  It would be great if it was.  Then it could be
> used with 8051 tools.  The core has its own pluses and minuses.  It has
> some features like the 8052 core.  But you would expect the designers to
> pick features they liked.  I feel the lack of bit instructions makes the
> code bigger.
>
> I would put it more in a PIC16 "Class" then 8052.  Due to the Smaller
> memory.  TI and Silab have better analog sections in their chips. But
> there cost more and do not have the blocks.

Ok, I will admit it's not 100% compatible to an 8051.  My original statement
of "the PSoC is a 8051 core, more or less" perhaps was misleading.  The
original poster said a vendor "suggested instead of staying with the 8051
family to try Cypress PSOC."  Prformance-wise, I think it is on the same
level as many of the 8051-like chips out there.  I agree that the lack of
bit manipulations is a hinderance.  My biggest gripe is the
accumulator-based instruction set.  It seems that just about everything has
to go through the accumulator, which is a serious bottleneck, compared to
register-to-register based architectures out there.  It is definitely
targeted to low-end stuff; the largest part you can get is 32K, with 2K of
RAM.  Recently, it seems that Cypress is pushing them hard for
capacative-touch applications, and all but forgot that many of us aren't
building iPods.

We both agree that it is a fine chip in its place, and not suitable for
everything.  The price is right, if the part fits the application.

-Travis