Why can't we use just a simple microcontroller?

Hello,
We need to select a microchip microcontroller for our PCB. We have found that the microchip selector tool has told us that we must choose something from the “dsPIC” range. Isn’t this range far more complicated than a “Normal” microcontroller?

Why do they call it a “dsPIC”?…. all we want is a simple “PIC”
Our microcontroller requirement was not complicated, we did not ask for high speed mathematical processing etc , so why has it only offered us the “dsPIC” range?…surely the “dsPIC” range are like ‘digital signal processors’?

The requirement for our microcontroller is as follows…..

..Must be programmable with a 5 pin header (ie the normal way for microchip microcontrollers)
..Must be able to program it using the simple “flowcode software”.
..64 pins
..18 Digital I/O
..Vdd = 3 – 5.5V
..7 ADC inputs
..1 PWM output (to control a 48V fan with)

Microchip microcontroller selector tool:
https://www.microchip.com/maps/microcontroller.aspx

An example of one of the recommended microcontrollers is the dsPIC30F6010A

dsPIC30F6010A Datasheet:
https://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/70150E.pdf

In the past we 'manually' selected the dsPIC family solely due to its relatively higher speed processing if compared to others 16F and 18F cores from the same manufacturer.


Note:
Is that specification correct ?

..7 ADC outputs

Click to expand...

if your work is not complicated you can do that with any microcontroller. but you choose 64 pin micro with 18 digital io. maybe that's why microchip suggest you dspic.

sorry ive corrected to adc inputs now

Hi,

Think you can use a lot of much simpler and cheaper Pics than the DS range.

Look at the datasheets for the 16F877a, 16F887 and 18F4520 which all seem to meet your requirements of 18+ I/O PINS plus extra free pins to allow programming and debugging without switches etc.

I assume you would prefer to use a 40pin Dip chip rather than a 64 pin SMD ?


Also you really have to decide on one voltage 3/3v3 or 5v and take in to consideration what voltages your other input and output devices like LCDs etc may need.

Flowcode has little to do with the programming of the chip, thats all taken care of by the complied .hex file and the Programmer you use; a Pickit 2/3 ?

Edit

The above chips are available in 28 and/ or 44pin SMD, does 20 less pins matter if you only want 18 I/O ?

64 pin is easier to lay out, (as many pins not used) and gives options for having more pins in future.

Probably the search tool provides the answer not only based on technical criteria, but also considering business issues such as price, current stock, next manufacture, or even future availability.

8 bit micro is suitable for many works but I saw microchip website, there is not any 8 bit micro with 64 pin so if you want 64 pin micro you should use 16 bit or dspic.

The answer to the original question is:

There's a larger number of PIC18 processors that meet all listed criteria. Possibly except for the flowcode point which isn't mentioned in the selector tools as far as I see. As flowcode is essentially a code generator for the regular C compiler, I guess it can work with any PIC processor, may be after some porting work. But I must confess, I'm not really interested in this tool.

andre_teprom said:

In the past we 'manually' selected the dsPIC family solely due to its relatively higher speed processing if compared to others 16F and 18F cores from the same manufacturer.

Click to expand...

I agree - unless we are dealing with 10000+ units we use either PIC24 or dsPIC devices depending upon application requirements (unless we go to PIC32 , ARM or TI C5000 devices). The extra functionality and performance over PIC16 and PIC18 devices make cost difference worth while.

If you want a really simple PIC , use fewer pins with serial I/O, not 64 pins. Use only 8.

And be aware that many of the PIC18 series devices (maybe some newer PIC16s too) have remappable pins so you can to some extent swap the pinouts around. It's a huge help when designing complex PCBs.

Brian.