Anyone using Cypress PSOC's?  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: iampoor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 08, 2016, 03:38:10 am
content: Is anyone using Cypress PSOC's in any interesting projects?I am a beginner, and received the CY8CKIT-059 PSoC® 5LP a few weeks ago. These chips are really cool, and the documentation is awesome (I tried starting out with PIC's and got lost in the mirad of documentation and incomplete information). Only major con's I can see right now are the low end options are pretty lacking, and the chips are pretty pricey.I havent seen PSOC's in any equipment I have ever opened. I wonder what the main market for them is. Automotive and Defense?Would love to see any cool projects you have done with PSOC's

author: asgard20032
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 08, 2016, 04:15:48 am
content: Search for VGA psoc. Someone here did really great thing...

author: kripton2035
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 08, 2016, 07:02:22 am
content: I saw a cypress psoc chip, in a macbook pro some years ago : it lights up the front led slowly when the mac is sleeping ...

author: iampoor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2016, 08:04:10 am
content: Quote from: asgard20032 on October 08, 2016, 04:15:48 amSuper rad.Quote from: kripton2035 on October 08, 2016, 07:02:22 amWas it a small 8 pin package?

author: kripton2035
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2016, 11:47:38 am
content: Quote from: iampoor onTodayat 11:04:10>Quote from: kripton2035 onYesterdayat 10:02:22Was it a small 8 pin package?no but a small qfn with 40 pins or something. smaller than a 8 pdip.it also served to handle the IR receiver in front of the laptop for the remote control

author: kripton2035
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2016, 12:10:52 pm
content: found the board ... it was in a macbookpro 2008 laptop, behind the front ir receiver

author: true
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2016, 04:06:22 pm
content: Quote from: iampoor on October 08, 2016, 03:38:10 amPSoC4000 is pretty uninteresting, except for the one 8pin part that is $0.29, and even that isn't all that appealing. I agree here.Quote from: iampoor on October 08, 2016, 03:38:10 amDepends on what you are trying to do. Using a PSoC5 to replace a PIC32 in one of my designs will cost about $1.50/ea more for the MCU, but will add 1) digital UDBs which will give performance far above what I have now in the design, 2) have faster interrupt response than MIPS PIC32, 3) let me eliminate 3x 8-bit level translators, 4) let me eliminate a voltage regulator, 5) let me reduce some other passives. So overall I am spending less for a product more tailored to my solution.Granted, not every case is like mine here, so it really depends on if your task is suited to what PSoC provides, and if the IDE is worth it to you (it is for me). Also, Cypress has been known to work with companies on even small quantities to help reduce cost. For a hobbyist, does it matter?Quote from: iampoor on October 08, 2016, 03:38:10 amI have, but agree, they aren't super common. Apple uses them (as stated in this thread). These are general purpose MCUs tied in with a configurable digital logic. Except for some models, like CY8C4000/4100, and new PSoC 4A, which would fit in PERFECTLY to a throttle control application I am working on...

author: alexanderbrevig
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2016, 08:19:14 pm
content: Not very cool but this was my first projecthttp://hackaday.com/2016/09/15/custom-gaming-keypad-developed-with-psoc-and-fusion-360/

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2016, 08:27:24 pm
content: Quote from: kripton2035 on October 08, 2016, 07:02:22 amAt least a few Macbooks use PSOCs for the keyboard interface.

author: PartialDischarge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2016, 08:38:48 pm
content: Quote from: iampoor on October 08, 2016, 03:38:10 amI do use Psocs, 3, 4 and 5 for different uses.Psoc 4 for control stuff. It does make sense the extra price given the digital+analog modules inside the thing. The ease of use and good documentation more than make up for it.I used the Psoc 5 evm board in a project I did post here:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/3d-object-tracking-with-digital-magnetometers-(personal-project)/msg953407/#msg953407It does calculate the position of a bar magnet with 4 3d magnetometers. A LOT of algorithms crammed into the thing, trigonometric and matrix calculations

author: andy1
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2016, 10:19:07 am
content: I use PSOC 4200 series mainly because of the UDBs and the 5v compatibility helps with some legacy use.I have replaced small cpld on one project and some even older discrete based ones with one that is much easier to configure once installed.On another project I used it as a simple pulse generator but the segment lcd support and UDBs were really nice way to remove some external hw.They are not the mcu I use the most but for some stuff (mainly the UDB, wide input voltage range) they are difficult to beat.

author: dferyance
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2016, 04:24:49 pm
content: I use PSoCs exclusively, but I only do hobby work. I have only recently been designing PCBs, before that I would point-to-point wire different breakout boards together. Having the integrated programmable analog and digital as well as flexible pin mappings sure made things easier.Yeah the wide voltage range is nice too. I happen to like PSoC Creator. I always found eclipse-based IDEs clunky due to being designed to be a generic IDE framework and most of the features being targeted towards Java. While PSoC Creator is designed specifically for the chips and language you are working with. Having a free, simple IDE was a good selling point for me.Due to working in very small quantities, the price hasn't been a problem for me. Although their BLE modules seem to compare price-wise quite well to other BLE modules I have looked at.

author: true
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2016, 03:15:02 am
content: Quote from: dferyance on October 10, 2016, 04:24:49 pmAnother plus is the BLE software programming side - it's way easier than the competition.Other than that, they're not very compelling. Competitors now have (way) lower power consumption, higher performance and offer more capabilities.

author: aandrew
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2016, 03:54:09 am
content: I've done significant work with PSoCs. A major microscopy OEM (manufactures FIBs and SEMs for the big names in those industries) have a number of them in their systems due to my input into the design. We use a beefy FPGA to do all the heavy data lifting but the individual boards and the motherboard all use PSoCs to communicate, configure and synchronize things.My take on them: They're neat, they have some decent analog (the 5LP does anyway) but ultimately they need to at least quadruple the number of UDBs on their devices to be at all truly useful as programmable logic. You can play some neat parlour tricks with them (we primarily used the UDBs for some additional serial interfaces/MUXes and some logic) but to do anything truly useful you run out of UDBs awfully fast. Their documentation tends to be on the lacking side as well, and their support network generally consists of a bunch of guys whose first language isn't English, with a typical response time of 20-40h and a whole lot of quick replies that show they did not read or understand the question in the first place. Don't even talk about the forums; they're terrible. The editor is terrible and it's the usual dreadful SNR.I hate their IDE and the fact that even if you want to write Verilog for the UDBs you still end up using that disgusting IDE. I dislike that I can only use Verilog and not VHDL, I dislike that the PAR and synthesis utilities are a little lacking in configuration/visibility into issues (particularly timing), and their auto-generated software is pretty much bottom of the barrel in terms of quality. If they could at least give us a solid command line set of UDB, DMA and general configuration utilities we could really make things sing, but it seems they just double down on the idiotic IDE. There's no reason the toolchain has to be windows-only, just drop that IDE.Now in their defence, I will say that the UDBs are one of the most woefully misunderstood components I've ever come across. Yes, they're crippled with an 8-bit datapath and yes, there are way too few of them to really do some work with them, but every one supports DMA and has a "micro ALU" that can be programmed independently of anything else. If you are willing to put the legwork in (and it's NOT well documented) you can really get those UDBs cranking out some interesting logic. Too bad Cypress' own tools don't help a lot here. If they were to bring the datapath up to 32 bits and extend the PSoC5LP family with UDB counts getting up to 128 or so... now THAT would be interesting.And while I'm dreaming... instead of the GAL-style "sum of products" blocks... replace them with primitive CLB or ALM blocks... that would be a serious contender in the low-end SoC market, a place that I feel has been ignored for far too long by all the vendors...My current love is STM32; I've worked on practically every single embedded platform out there over the last 25 years or so but STMicro seems to have put a LOT of legwork into a solid MCU series. Strong peripherals, a heavy dose of "let's try to make moving between Cortex families as seamless as possible" and pretty decent support. They certainly don't point you off to a craptastic "community support forum" like Microchip, Freescale/NXP, Cypress and a number of others all do. Also... ALL of their dev boards have not only schematics and gerbers, but also the Altium design files available for free, and they also crank out a fair amount of high-end algorithm libraries that target their products and give them away for free, provided you use them for their parts. Too bad STMicro doesn't have any kind of programmable logic component.

author: kripton2035
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2016, 05:55:41 am
content: Hey, no chip is perfecteach chip has is prefered domain. cypress is mixed analog-digital. they try to go to small fpga but are too small.you have to learn some different chip and choose the chip for the work to do. each chip has his own field of use and you must know them.learn some different chips, and cypress is quite different from the others.

author: obiwanjacobi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2016, 02:17:23 pm
content: I'm doing a hobby project with the PSoC5 kit. I programmed it to be a System Controller to a Z80 computer without ROM. The PSoC manages the connection to the PC and can load the program from the PC into the Z80 computer. Check my blog (signature) for details. I think its very affordable fun stuff!

author: danadak
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2016, 01:36:01 am
content: For me what stands out is -1) Routability2) Fast 12 bit SAR A/D and slow 20 bit DelSig3) DFB (Digital Filter Block) that is dual channel, handle FIR or IIR filters, or DFBcan be used as a GP fast processor block, sililiar to RISC block4) MSI logic elements GUI based and/or the UDB Verilog capability. Eg. the FPGAlike capability5) Onboard Vref6) DAC, IDAC, OpAmps (up to 4), comparator, mixer, switch cap, analog mux....7) LCDCOM, UART, I2C, I2S, One Wire, SPI, Parallel, LIN, CAN, BLE9) Custom components capability10) DMA to offload processes like filters11) ARM M0 or M3 or 8051 core12) Extensive clock generation capabilitieshttps://www.element14.com/community/thread/23736/l/100-projects-in-100-days?displayFullThread=truehttp://www.cypress.com/documentation/code-examples/psoc-345-code-examplesGreat video libraryGUI design tool with schematic capture. Components have rich API library attachedto each componentAttached component listRegards, Dana.

author: ale500
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2016, 04:35:59 am
content: QuoteI wanted to do that but for the 6809 !... I wonder which method you used...

author: obiwanjacobi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2016, 07:53:48 am
content: Quote from: ale500 on October 12, 2016, 04:35:59 amNot entirely sure what you mean by 'method'...I open up a serial (over USB) connection to the PC and sit waiting for (ascii) commands to come in.I have defined several commands to manipulate the Z80 computer. The PSoC also generates the clock for the Z80 so there are also commands to make that run slower/faster (for debugging). The Memory Write (mw) command allows you to upload a binary file from the PC into the Z80 computer's RAM. Then you release the /RESET (another command) and off you go.I have also logic in the PSoC to decode some IO addressesto allow the Z80 to communicate over the (USB) serial to the PC (and back).(My project is not on the internet yet, but I have plans to publish it...)

author: newbrain
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2016, 08:13:34 am
content: Quote from: obiwanjacobi on October 12, 2016, 07:53:48 amPlease do!I have a PSoC5 coming (today) and, as ale500, I intended to use it for a 6809 that's gathering dust...

author: bobaruni
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2016, 09:12:39 am
content: I personally can't wait for the PSoC 7 (cortex M7), hope they will implement a USB 2 HS interface with built in phy.

author: obiwanjacobi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2016, 10:04:18 am
content: Quote from: newbrain on October 12, 2016, 08:13:34 amOh well, okay than...https://github.com/obiwanjacobi/ZaltPSoC stuff ishere.Have fun!

author: ale500
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2016, 10:06:10 am
content: I meant how do you allow the processor to access the memory on the PSoC. I guess you are using an interrupt and some wait states...OK: I downloaded the design and had a look, you write the memory instead of using the PSoC as a ROM. Very clever !

author: obiwanjacobi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2016, 10:33:05 am
content: Quote from: ale500 on October 12, 2016, 10:06:10 amYes the PSoC is an arbiter and a mediator (I have called it a System Controller) but the Z80 does not have access to any of its internals.The PSoC does DMA using the Z80 BUSREQ and BUSACK signals.I posted a new thread about my projecton the projects list if you want to discuss further...

author: iampoor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2016, 01:55:45 am
content: Quote from: kripton2035 on October 09, 2016, 12:10:52 pmVery cool! Thanks for finding that. I wonder why they chose that specific chip (capacitive sensing?), and what the price break is at a few 10's of millions.http://www.cypress.com/part/cy8c24794-24ltxiQuote from: true on October 09, 2016, 04:06:22 pmYes, it would be really nice to have a lower end MCU with some UDB's.After reading more over the past few days, I also agree with your points on cost now. I discovered that the 5200lp 100 pin TQFP packages with 24 UDB's are only 3.95 in quantities of 100. I was looking at using some pic 32MX parts, and these look like a good replacement. Originally I was looking at the 5800 series with the precision analog front end, and those are ~ 14$ each in quantities of 100. I didnt discover the 5200 series until after my OP, and those have opened up a whole new world of possibilities. I have been able to replace an entire board of debouncing functions and a couple glue logic chips, saving me over 5$. I am planning on doing small run production of a few projects using PSOC's in the future, and having an easy to use IDE with clearly written documentation is worth its weight in gold. Development time is far more expensive than the actual parts.Good to know too. Im glad cypress supports the little guys!Quote from: alexanderbrevig on October 09, 2016, 08:19:14 pmI like it.Cool case design. The people in the comments section are buttheads tho!Quote from: MasterTech on October 09, 2016, 08:38:48 pm

author: bobaruni
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2016, 04:59:50 am
content: Quote from: iampoor on October 14, 2016, 01:55:45 amI haven't seen a press release about PSoC 7 or even 6 for that matter, but it is listed on the latest road map as "Next Generation" and "Concept" whereas PSoC 6 is marked as "High Performance" and "Development".http://www.cypress.com/file/151476/download