question about Microcontrollers?

[goosiegoo]

question about Micros?

I'm very interested in design with Microcontrollers, I learned in school how to work with the AT89C52 micro, but I know it's quite old. So i have a few questions

1.- which micros are more popular this days?

2.- Do you guys work with only 1 micro? or several??

3.- if you work with more than one, how do you choose which one you are going to use?

Thanx alot for you time.

Gus

 

[solvarg]

Re: question about Micros?

I'm very interested in design with Microcontrollers, I learned in school how to work with the AT89C52 micro, but I know it's quite old. So i have a few questions

1.- which micros are more popular this days?

2.- Do you guys work with only 1 micro? or several??

3.- if you work with more than one, how do you choose which one you are going to use?

Thanx alot for you time.
Gus

1. Atmel have a lot of more modern devices, quite popular as well.
2. I work with as many i can cope with ( and afford the tools).
3. The one I know best or is most available or is most sutible.

Regards

 

[ME]

The AVR family from Atmel is very modern and getting more and more popular.
Texas new MSP430 family is also very modern and also getting popular.
Microchip have made the new PIC18F family, which have a more modern arcitechture than the old PIC16 family.

We use the AVR with the Atmel STK500 devlompment board for a MCU course at my engineering college. I think the AVR is very easy to use and it is very fast and very c friendly.
We use the CodeVisionAVR C compiler, it's quite cheap and good.
Compilers for PIC are more expensive and not as good as the ones for AVR.
I haven't tried to use the TI MSP430.
All three families are flash programable, like the ones you are used to.
Search elektroda for AVR vs. PIC and you will find some topics about these MCU's and MSP430.
If you want to learn more about the AVR then go to www.avrfreaks.net, it's a very good starting point.

 

[Zenner]

Re: question about Micros?

If you need modern 8051, try to high speed mcu from Dallas 89c420 :arrow:

**broken link removed**

 

[goosiegoo]

Re: question about Micros?

thanx alot guys, thanx for taking the time.

I'll start reading material about those MCUs.

I also was thinking of getting into the 68HC11 from motorola.. or maybe Mitsubishi's M16C... I have a couple of micros from Maxim too, I'll guess it really depends on what suits my project the best.

But I will move on from the 89C52, and start looking around for more modern stuff.

Thanx a million

 

[ME]

Re: question about Micros?

I also was thinking of getting into the 68HC11 from motorola.. or maybe Mitsubishi's M16C...

Remeber that Mitsubishi Electric Corporation have merged with Hitachi Ltd. Semiconductor & IC Group. The name of the new company is Renesas Technology:
**broken link removed**

Renesas also make the popular H8/300 series, originally from Hitachi.

Renesas MCU & MPU oveview:
**broken link removed**

 

[ME]

Try to read these topics about MCU choice:
www.elektroda.pl/eboard/ftopic49334.html
www.elektroda.pl/eboard/viewtopic.php?t=24996
www.elektroda.pl/eboard/searchtopic58306-mcu.html

 

[alexgrok]

Re: question about Micros?

If you are planning a new embedded project, remember to choose the popular device that does what you want that has ample CHEAP support, in terms of cheap/easy programming, cheap/free IDE versions, etc. from personal experience, even cheap can turn out to be expensive, so be careful!

good luck.
-alex

 

[visualart]

Re: question about Micros?

I'm very interested in design with Microcontrollers, I learned in school how to work with the AT89C52 micro, but I know it's quite old. So i have a few questions

1.- which micros are more popular this days?

2.- Do you guys work with only 1 micro? or several??

3.- if you work with more than one, how do you choose which one you are going to use?

Thanx alot for you time.

Gus

8 bit pop MCU is the AVR families.
16bit is the Motorola Dragonball families
32bit is the ARM
In the Soc, there are general more than one Core.

 

[ahsan]

question about Micros?

there are many differenet micro-controllers each having certain advantages....if u have done AT80C52 then firstly AT89C52 is not toooo old specially for a beginners and secondly Atmel also offers micros having high speed, USB support etc (check 89C5131, 89C5132). If u switch to these controllers than it will be lot easier for u to understand it (since u are familiar with AT89C52). If u want to work with other micros than their instruction set would be totally different (except those that are compatible with Intel family). The question abt working on different micros.....if u use C language for programming the controller that it becomes v. easy to use different controllers as u dont have to learn the whole instruction set for that particular controller which u are using.

 

[irfansyah]

Re: question about Micros?

AT89C52 is not too old i think. It is still good to use. But lately i replace it by an AT89S52 which is cheaper but has better features: ISP programmable, 2 timers, etc.

AT89S52 are really cheap, easy to program, many books about it, many users and developers worldwide

I also learn AVR, i even used it in my projects. But AT89s52 is still a good option. I still use it because it is much cheaper