Adding to what newbrain said -
1) PSOC 5LP family has an internal DSP engine that can function as another
processor, in fact the PSOC 6 family imminent has a true dual processor architecture.
Cortex M0+ and Cortex M4. The DSP engine can be programmed to do some non
standard math or control, or used in its standard config as a digital filter, FIR or IIR,
dual channel, up to 128 taps in FIR.
2) The routing is pretty general, except that the analog has a preferred, not mandatory,
ports. There is a tool to analyze the switch paths in case one wants to deviate from the
norm.
3) User can create custom components (chip functionality) using Verilog or schematic
capture using all the predefined basic logic elements.
4) I am not a PSOC expert, just an active user. There are people on their website supporting
designers that I would classify as knowing a lot more than I do, Bob Marlowe being one. He
is very active over there helping.
5) Recently analog primitives have been added so one can build special analog capability.
I do not know yet how complete that is. But looks interesting. I worked in the field as
an FAE with a number of companies doing dual processor designs, for reliability, non-
stop computing, etc..
6) The on board bandgap ref is +/- .1%, not too shabby.
7) DMA facility quite good, in terms of triggering, chaining, background operations etc..
Dual ADCs, 12 bit SAR + 20 bit DelSig, or dual 12 bit SAR.
9) There are several families, some sub $1, all with various HW resources. Even Bluetooth is
targeted by one family. The high end parts are not cheap, but when fully used very competitive.
All use same tool, PSOC Creator. Free, including compiler.
10) Some people are doing PSOC development on MAC using Parallels. Linux I see activity
on web, at your own risk I gather.
11) Several wizards make life easy setting up components like digital filter, DMA, routing evaluation,
clock system, ADC setup......
Just a few of the good things in a PSOC.
Regards, Dana.