Microchip vs Atmel

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    Registered Konstantin's Avatar
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    Default Microchip vs Atmel

    Hello.
    I was having my first encounters with microcontrollers and I have played with MPLAB mpasm programming a very little bit, mainly trying to understand the PICStep program. I also installed the AvrStudio but havent used it much.

    As a programmer I am unskilled I have notions of C and ASM but if I would learn to use a microcontroller I would like to dig into C because of the higher lever programming is easier to read and to code. I am pretty much set on this because of my ADHD and the amount of focus needed to debug asm code if out of my league, so I need easier readability of the code.
    Do MPLAB has a WinAVR GCC equivalent? I am not into purchasing a separate compiler for the moment.

    Right now I am studying the possibility to purchase a developer tool of sort hopefully with LCD for microcontroller programming and application implementation not particularly for motion control but in general.

    The thing that have stuck in my head is that Avr programs are 100% operational in any of the microcontroller family. PICs programs are different depending on the family PIC16 vs PIC18.


    Locally I have Newark and its virtually Avr-less but otoh has hundreds of Microchip Devtools available, there are so many that choosing a Developer Tool is becoming very confusing. If the budget is about $150 which Microchip devtool is best suited for a beginner. A developer board does PIC programming or I need another one for that task?

    Thanks.
    Konstantin.

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    IMHO you can't go wrong with WinAVR and Avrstudio, nice to have everything integrated.

    IIRC GCC is not available for PIC but microchip has an (probably timelimited) free trial of their compiler. Microchip is also generous in sending out samples.

    If you go with AVR (digikey has a lot of AVR stuff) look into getting the dragon, it will allow you to do in circuit debugging on the smaller devices(<32k flash) and will do incircuit serial programming also.

    Regarding running code in different AVR's, while the basic core is the same the peripherals are not so it is mandatory to check/modify the code anyway. If programming in C I would guesss it is not much more difficult to port PIC programs between series. hmm acutally if programming in C and you have similar peripherals it is not too difficult porting between AVR and PIC also....

    www.avrfreaks.net is a good place to get some more insight into AVR's..



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    I would also vote for AVR as an easy to learn system. Most (or all?) Atmel devices have a similar core and share instruction sets. WinAVR is a freeware C compiler that supports all devices except the "tiny" family.

    The in-circuit programmers are relatively cheap. Adding a 6 pin jumper to your board allows you to compile and download code without having to remove the AVR. This makes it really easy to incrementally test your software.



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    I have been doing microcontroller development for about 25 years and there never has been so many good tools to pick from. Most every major chip mfg has a good selection of development tools to pick from for next to nothing cost wise and most work very well. For the types of things you are talking about learning there really is not a wrong selection, just pick your favorite color and go. If you are specifically interested in the PICstep then the logical choice would be Microchip in my view. One could also look at TI(MSP430), Zilog (Z8), Freescale (SC8), Atmel(AVR), Microchip (PIC), ST, Renesas / Hitachi (Mx or H8), Philips (8051) as just few of the many possible selections.



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    I have big experians with AVR and for me AVR is the best. But if you start now use easy to find cpu.



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    Hi-Tech Software has a version of their Microchip C- compiler PICC-LITE. The "lite" version supports the PIC16F690 micro , as well as a few others. I believe the the compiler limits you to 2k of program space. The 16F690 has a lot of good peripheral functions.

    http://htsoft.com



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    Another one for the list would be the Propeller chip from Parallax, makers of the basic stamp. Good specs, 8 onboard processors for multitasking, 32 I/O lines, object orientated programming, and there is a lot of code already written as open source that you can use in your own programs to speed up development.

    I have just started to play around with my prop chip and it is a lot of fun, with some pretty impressive features.

    Good Luck !!!

    Russell.



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    hello
    all the above advice is really good, rtp says just choose an avenue.
    if you look at the list of pic chips, you will find one almost taylored to any application and some are just a little over $1.
    the list may look confusing at first but choose a general purpose one to start with, you will always use it some where.
    maybe check out kits r us web sight for cheap programmers and omlek for developement pc boards.
    i have wrote programs for both atmel and pic chips. i found the pic's more powerful to use due to the different specific chip features ( like built in - usb, rs232, quad encoder, adc's, timers, interups etc....) .
    there is also the pic ant.



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    I do both AVR and PIC, but often, if I need a quick solution, I use PIC because DIP PIC chip are readily available to me. All of my AVR chips (Mega128, etc) are surface mount type which I have to design a PCB for it. But these AVR's are powerful and easy to use.

    Yes, www.avrfreak.net is good place to learn it.



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    Too bad microchip doesn't have a Divide instruction like Freescale (motorola). Does Atmel ? Pic does on its new 16 bit processors.



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    You could also check out Mikro Labs and download the different programs to try out. They are not time limited but size of the program is. I have Mikro C and Mikro basic in my shop pc to look and play with. There is also a forum for info.
    John



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    IAR is little bit costly but better to use as it supports many micros including PIC and AVR . It has evaluation version with limitations. Of course avrgcc is there if you need free tool and its quality is not so bad compared to commercial tools.

    many AVR chips are available in DIP package as well and is as cheap as PIC . Regarding newer versions there is 32 bit avr , but those are advanced and even support linux.



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    I heard Atmel is very popular in Europe, and PICs are great in USA.



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    I've never been much of a PIC person, years ago they were sub performers to AVR's. Today there are more selections of PIC's but when looking for a lower cost part, still seems AVR's are lower in price. As far as performance goes, the Philip's LPC family of ARM chips packs a punch for low dollars.

    Phil, Still too many interests, too many projects, and not enough time!!!!!!!!
    Vist my websites - http://pminmo.com & http://millpcbs.com


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    If developing hardware is at all an issue for you, then you might consider pic chips since there is a company called melabs that makes prototyping boards for many of the pic chips. All you add is an oscillator, a voltage regulator and a processor and off you go. They typically have prototyping areas too and can be handy for some of the denser pin count devices that pic has. I don't know if the atmels have those sort fo thigns too. i'm sure they do but I'm too lazy to go look right now.

    Good luck.



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    what I like in AVRs is that throughput is roughly the same as your clock whereas in PICs execution is done in 4 clock cycles. AVR also have lots of free development stuff like WinAVR GCC whereas most free compilers for PIC would be limited, some are not just space limited but also optimization wise. from where I get the chips, AVRs are also cheaper than PICs.

    with regards to programmer, I can always design one just reading the datasheet. haven't done debuggers though. Bootstrap Loaders are also great additions in some microcontrollers.



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    Thumbs up Try a real rocket ship...

    The whole devolpment system on a keytag.
    Programmable Sytem on Chip.
    All drag and drop windows interface. Good tools. Cheap development system.
    http://www.cypress.com/firsttouch/
    It is 48MHz fast.
    Eight pin chips all the way up to BIG ones.


    Super X3. 3600rpm. Sheridan 6"x24" Lathe + more. THREE ways to fix things: The RIGHT way, the OTHER way, and maybe YOUR way, which is possibly a FASTER WRONG WAY!


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    Cypress PSoC is pretty meh. SiLabs has their chips, TI has the MSP, and Luminary has their line of ARM cortex chips, all of which are quite a bit better than the AVR for certain applications. The AVR is a very strong chip, I use them in a lot of my designs since they're dependable and have a great following (see avrfreaks.net). The AVRs kick the crap out of PICs though six ways to sunday. Some PICs have better peripherals than AVRs (USB and the like), and the dsPICs are very strong chips, better then AVRs for their application, but the standard vanilla PIC is totally obsoleted by the AVR.

    When judging microcontrollers, never look at the max clock speed alone. That has to be divided by the length of the instruction cycle, which is represented in the datasheet as MIPS. On an AVR, one clock generally correlates to one instruction executed, meaning that at the max 16 mhz it's running at 16 MIPS, for the newer mega88s and the like that's a max 20 mhz so a max of 20 MIPS. For a PIC most instructions are 4 cycles (since it's a von neumann architecture, it has to handle memory transactions differently). This means that at the 20 mhz most chips specify as the max clock speed, they can do 5 MIPS. The 48MHz on the cypress? I forget but it gets clocked down to something stupidly low. ARMs in general sometimes execute two instructions in a clock, usually it's 1:1.



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    Smile You can run 24Mhz

    48MHz becomes 24MHz. sure, and you don't need a crystal for most apps.

    I know some things get well and truly divided down. Some instructions can be 13 cycles. But it sure is easy to use. Once you set something going it runs in the background, often in all in hardware with little or no interrupt suport required.
    If you want a PWM (or 2), or a D-A it just works. Write a new value to a register and you are done.
    Development system is tiny. Signals don't get corrupted by long wiring (unless you add heaps your self)
    I gladly paid for a good C compiler. Libraries give instant results.
    I am not a biased one eyed supporter. It just works for me.
    Naturally, if you wanted multiple interrupt driven quadrature encoder support at 200Khz/channel you would not choose this chip. What would you use for that?


    Super X3. 3600rpm. Sheridan 6"x24" Lathe + more. THREE ways to fix things: The RIGHT way, the OTHER way, and maybe YOUR way, which is possibly a FASTER WRONG WAY!


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    anybody here tried overclocking these micro's? i once tried a mega88 running at 25Mhz. MSP430 (8 Mhz max series) at 12 Mhz. the micro's are running stable. it's just for fun and never really uses them on my designs.

    I like the MSP430's. TI is so generous in giving away samples.



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Microchip vs Atmel

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