A few days ago, replacing my household thermostat, I discovered a PIC16LCR57C inside.
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A few days ago, replacing my household thermostat, I discovered a PIC16LCR57C inside.
Russ
N0EVC, xWB6ONT, xWN6ONT
"Easy to use" is easy to say.
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PICs
I was just browsing Jack Ganssle's web site and when I saw this bit (http://www.ganssle.com/articles/asmall.htm) excerpted below:
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I'm fascinated with Microchip's PIC16/17 processors, which seem to be squeezing into a lot of low end applications. These are cool parts. The smaller members of the family offer a minimum amount of compute capability that is ideal for simple, cost-sensitive systems. Higher-end versions are well suited for more complicated control applications
Designer's seem to view these CPUs as something other than computers. "Oh, yeah, we tossed in a couple of PIC16s to handle the microswitches," the engineer relates, as if the part were nothing more than a PAL. This is a bit different from the bloodied, battered look you'll get from the haggard designer trying to ship a 68030-based controller. The microcontroller is easy to use simply because it is stuffed into easy applications.
L.A. Gear sells sneakers that blink an LED when you walk. A PIC16C5x powers these for months or years without replacing the battery. Scientists tag animals in the wild with expendable subcutaneous tracking devices powered by these parts. Household appliances depend on PIC variants.
A friend developing instruments based on a 32 bit CPU discovered that his PLDs don't always properly recover from brown-out conditions. He stuffed a $2 Microchip controller on the board to properly sequence the PLD's reset signals, insuring recovery from low-voltage spikes. The part costs virtually nothing, required no more than a handful of lines of code, and occupies the board space of a small DIP. Though it may seem weird to use a full computer for this trivial function, it's cheaper than a PAL.
Not that there's anything wrong with PALs. Nothing is faster or better at dealing with complex combinatorial logic. Modern super-fast versions are cheap (we pay $12 in singles for a 7 nanosecond 22V10), easy to use, and their reprogramability is a great savior of designs that aren't quite right. PALs, though, are terrible at handling anything other than simple sequential logic. The limited number of registers and clocking options means you can't use them for complicated decision making. PLDs are better, but when speed is not critical a computer chip might be the simplest way to go.
As the industry matures lots of parts we depend on become obsolete. One acquaintance found the UART his company depended on no longer available. He built a replacement in a PIC16C74, which was pin-compatible with the original UART, saving the company expensive redesigns.
In the good old days of microcomputing hardware engineers also wrote and debugged all of the system's code. Most systems were small enough that a single, knowledgeable designer could take the project from conception to final product. In the realm of small, tractable problems like those just described, this is still the case. Nothing measures up to the pride of being solely responsible for a successful product; I can imagine how the designer's eyes must light up when he sees legions of kids skipping down the sidewalk flashing their L.A. Gears at the crowds.
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I remembered this thread and thought it would add some credibility to the "Professional" camp. Microchip hasn't sold 3 BILLION PICs to hobbyists alone!
Last edited by Sergeant; - 26th October 2007 at 02:43. Reason: Added additional info
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Probably about 0.02% of that 3 billion, if that!Originally Posted by Sergeant
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BGA solder
Found: http://www.schmartboard.com/index.asp?page=products_bga
BGA up to 400 balls.
.27 and 1.0mm pitches.
.8 and .5mm in the future.
http://www.schmartboard.com:80/index...cts_qfp&id=116
QFP, 128 - 240 Pins 0.5mm Pitch
How do you program Blackwater micro's outside of the development board for production?
Socket programmer?
In circuit programming?
Schematic or link?
Norm
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Laugh out loud! People make money with brains, work, or gutsy risk taking
whatever their tools are, chips aren't much good on their own really,
what a silly question.
And proof ha ha.
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Does anybody in this forum, still go to Curches nowadays? hehehe kiddin'
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you'll never please this guy..
you'll never please this guy..
he's one of those people who think it takes at least a $20,000 piece of equipment to be sure that there is no ripple on a $10 regulated output wal-wart... i can tell you VERY important things to the worlds safety, (or your harm, if your a bad guy) contain PIC micros.... or whatever is at hand to do the job and get the job done for as cheap as possible.. you wouldnt believe the number of obsolete components in things you would think should be top of the line!! (use your imagination..). the point is, a good engineer or technician will make anything work perfectly if its important enough.. using whatever.. and how about radar? guess what, they still use... VACUUM TUBES.. yes, good ol' wwII era valves.. sure there are things that are brand spanking new out there that can do the same job.. but not as well at the power level's needed.. and why all this? because the war business doesnt drive the market.. consumer goods do. so while you enjoy your ipod with its 2000000 GHz processor spitting out your timberlake... remember that there ARE things out there that have no where near the power and do much, much more important jobs... that have to work no matter what... it all just depends on the need at hand. and look at the number of ipod failures.. lockups, bad firmware... every microcontroller can fail or have problems.
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selbstdual, would you consider Nike and iPod's engineers to be professionals? If your answer is yes, then check this out:
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/pre...iPod-Internals
They seem to think a PIC16F688 is ok.
What about you?
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