Poll

do you prefer pic or avr microcontrollers?

i use and prefer pic over avr
18 (25.4%)
i use and prefer avr over pic
26 (36.6%)
i dont care. i use whatever suits me.
24 (33.8%)
i hate pic and i love avr
3 (4.2%)
i hate avr and i love pic.
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 68

Author Topic: pic or avr microcontrollers?  (Read 16086 times)

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Offline Howardlong

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Re: pic or avr microcontrollers?
« Reply #25 on: February 02, 2015, 04:11:26 pm »
PICs are a bit slower clock for clock due to architecture. Instructions take a few clocks to execute vs AVRs which do most instructions in a single clock. This isn't a negative. You just use a faster xtal if you need to.

PIC10/12/16/18 Fcycle = 4 x Fxtal
PIC24/dsPIC Fcycle = 2 x Fxtal
PIC32 Fcycle = Fxtal

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AVRs have a free compiler which is intergrated into free IDEs. Commercial projects are easy without having to check licenses.

As does Microchip, although if you want the full optimisation it's going to cost. Not sure how long this will last though, it's a competitive world out there.

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PICs tend to have more silicon bugs than AVRs. Probably due to making so many mcu versions and varients.

I can't disagree with that, and it's not getting any better, the newest PIC32MZs are a disgrace.

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AVRs have really nice hardware peripherals which are easy to understand and program. Some if the PIC hardware peripherals can be confusing.

You should try some of the NXP devices' peripherals, there's a lesson in self-flagellation!
 

Offline AndyC_772

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Re: pic or avr microcontrollers?
« Reply #26 on: February 02, 2015, 04:18:10 pm »
I'll see your NXP, and raise you an STM32 timer.

Offline ebclr

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None Of then STM32 cover both at less cost : pic or avr microcontrollers?
« Reply #27 on: February 02, 2015, 11:31:27 pm »
None Of then STM32 cover both at less cost
 

Online Psi

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Re: pic or avr microcontrollers?
« Reply #28 on: February 02, 2015, 11:34:44 pm »
STM32 timers are intended to be used with the standard library, so they didn't put much effort into making the registers human friendly
Greek letter 'Psi' (not Pounds per Square Inch)
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: pic or avr microcontrollers?
« Reply #29 on: February 03, 2015, 12:51:21 am »
Why not ARM? Screw people who say ARM microcontrollers are complicated! (where is the middle finger smiley  >:D )
I started to get interested in microcontrollers when I was not much older than 14 and I would have given my left nut if something like a modern ARM controller was available back then. The sheer amount of processing power opens so much possibilities...
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline BloodyCactus

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Re: pic or avr microcontrollers?
« Reply #30 on: February 03, 2015, 02:41:16 am »
As does Microchip, although if you want the full optimisation it's going to cost. Not sure how long this will last though, it's a competitive world out there.

for pic32 its free, just recompile gcc without the license server check. since its open source, it is legal to do so.
-- Aussie living in the USA --
 

Offline Howardlong

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Re: pic or avr microcontrollers?
« Reply #31 on: February 03, 2015, 08:01:56 am »
As does Microchip, although if you want the full optimisation it's going to cost. Not sure how long this will last though, it's a competitive world out there.

for pic32 its free, just recompile gcc without the license server check. since its open source, it is legal to do so.

Interesting. The draconian licensing Microchip introduced about three years ago with their XC series of compilers sticks, it keeps breaking as it's tied to whatever MAC address the compiler picks up. particularly in these days of virtual NICs, it's all too easy to break that. I believe that more recently they've now also become time-limited, with annual subscription. I had previously been grandfathered in from the C18, C30 and C32 compilers which had no annual subscription and free updates. So if you want to use the new chips with the full optimizing compiler. you'd have to fork out for an annual subscription, one for each of the three compilers.

Again it is difficult to see how this can continue when other vendors are giving away their full compilers either gratis, or at a much reduced cost compared to Microchip.
 

Offline andersm

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Re: pic or avr microcontrollers?
« Reply #32 on: February 03, 2015, 08:14:21 am »
Why not ARM? Screw people who say ARM microcontrollers are complicated!
Obviously YMMV, but apart from the clock setup, I really don't think eg. the STMF1 series is any more complicated than the ATmega series. And the vendor provides code for configuring the clocks.

Offline BloodyCactus

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Re: pic or avr microcontrollers?
« Reply #33 on: February 03, 2015, 01:28:48 pm »
Interesting. The draconian licensing Microchip introduced about three years ago with their XC series of compilers sticks, it keeps breaking as it's tied to whatever MAC address the compiler picks up. particularly in these days of virtual NICs, it's all too easy to break that. I believe that more recently they've now also become time-limited, with annual subscription. I had previously been grandfathered in from the C18, C30 and C32 compilers which had no annual subscription and free updates. So if you want to use the new chips with the full optimizing compiler. you'd have to fork out for an annual subscription, one for each of the three compilers.

well they provide the source for xc32 since it is gcc. your still stuck with licensing in xc8/xc16 etc but for xc32 you can just comment it out and recompile
-- Aussie living in the USA --
 

Offline dannyf

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Re: pic or avr microcontrollers?
« Reply #34 on: February 03, 2015, 01:35:48 pm »
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, it keeps breaking

I can report no problem here.

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when other vendors are giving away their full compilers

Curious who those other vendors are.

But end of the day, if you are that sensitive to tool costs, maybe you aren't the ones Microchip wants to sell chips to - and I think they are right about that -> I have never encountered a commercial situation where costs of tools drive hardware decisions.
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Offline nctnico

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Re: pic or avr microcontrollers?
« Reply #35 on: February 03, 2015, 02:28:05 pm »
Quote
, it keeps breaking
I can report no problem here.
That is short sighted. Imagine you are on a deadline and your PC breaks down. Transferring a license can take a lot of time especially if you can remove a license from a dead PC. As a rule I don't use software which requires a node locked license.
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Quote
when other vendors are giving away their full compilers

Curious who those other vendors are.

But end of the day, if you are that sensitive to tool costs, maybe you aren't the ones Microchip wants to sell chips to - and I think they are right about that -> I have never encountered a commercial situation where costs of tools drive hardware decisions.
Work as an engineer in the Netherlands for a while. Tool costs are everything. Distributors are usually handing out the tools for free otherwise they won't sell any chips.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Online westfw

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Re: pic or avr microcontrollers?
« Reply #36 on: February 04, 2015, 09:16:47 am »
Atmel's avr-gcc is free and many other vendors are supporting both gcc and a for-money compiler (for certain definitions of "their" and "supporting.")

For PIC32 (or some PIC32s, anyway), you can think about downloading the "mpide" environment.  This is an arduino-clone IDE, which of course includes an appropriate copy of gcc for mips, newlib, and etc that can be used from cli or other IDEs. (available for three OSes; no compiling required.)  "They" have gone to some effort to avoid microchip-licensed libraries in favor of open source.
 

Offline Poe

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Re: pic or avr microcontrollers?
« Reply #37 on: February 04, 2015, 04:27:41 pm »
Now have a poll for who started on which platform.

I've found people identify with the first thing they fully learn.  Everything else is 'unintuitive'.

 ;D
 

Offline dannyf

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Re: pic or avr microcontrollers?
« Reply #38 on: February 04, 2015, 04:33:05 pm »
I started with intel mcs-48.

I have to say, that I don't find any of the mcus I have worked on to be intuitive or un-intuitive: they are actually transparent to me for the most part. And I actually know very little about the inner workings of those chips, as I program in C.

To give you an example, my favorite development environment is CB+GCC and uVision C51. Most of the code I wrote run on ARM and PIC24 chips, but they might as well run on AVR or 8051 or you-name-it.
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