Tim Forcer

SoftPICthe disembedded microcontroller

Dept of Electronics & Computer Science

University of Southampton

EEUG Workshop on Embedded Systemsand Hardware/Software co-design

2000 September 7

Introducing the micro

40 legs OK - 200 legs bad

8 bits good - 32 bits trouble

RISC good - CISC awkward

von Neumann OK - Havard better?

Occam’s micro - all hail the PIC

Low-end PICs and practicalitycheap

popular

compact

robust

reprogrammable

free development tools

good literature

versatile

Low-end PICs and practicality

extremely limited RAM

only stacks PC

can’t support full-blown C

all busses and control lines invisible

cheappopularcompactrobustreprogrammablefree development toolsgood literatureversatile

Emulation

Soft vs Hard - the value of reality

Serendipity - IP cores

Third year student projects

The development process

Student projects

aiming at different targets

Developing the specification

panaceas are difficult

Realisation

The Microsystem Experimenter Unit

from dual-purpose to multi-purpose

Costs, procurement and production

reality bites

Using SoftPIC

Constant Instruction mode

Simple loop program

Conditional branching program

Download of user code

Will it work?

Is there an ideal teaching micro?

Is the PIC a good teaching micro?

Does SoftPIC provide a solution?

Is the MEU a viable platform?