Author Topic: PIC32 Cortex-Ms  (Read 14626 times)

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Offline andersmTopic starter

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PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« on: July 17, 2017, 09:19:26 pm »
To maximize confusion, it seems Microchip's future ARM chips are also going to be sold under the PIC32 brand. The Harmony 2.03B installer comes with register headers for the Cortex-M4-based PIC32CX, and the Cortex-M7-based PIC32CZ, and they are obviously Atmel parts (for instance, the CZ has a GMAC that's almost identical to the one in Atmel's SAMA5D3). The only relevant Google hit I found was a single app note (AN2496, AFE Calibration on PIC32CZ CA70/CG70 Microcontrollers), so I guess these are still some way off from release. I'm not familiar with Atmel's roadmap so I have no idea how long they have been in the works, and under what name.

This does suggest two things:
- The Atmel name, or at least the SAM brand, will be phased out.
- The ASF framework will be replaced in favour of Harmony, but I would assume that only applies to new parts.

Offline MK14

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #1 on: July 17, 2017, 09:26:29 pm »
In some respects, I'm pleased.
The worry with buying the Atmel parts, is. What out of the Atmel range, is Microchip going to phase out, over the coming years ?

Anything they rename, under the PIC32 etc branding, is likely to remain in production a (hopefully) long time. So is worth investing time and money, developing products/projects with/for.

They may well keep some/all of the Atmel stuff, going for ages. But there always is that lingering doubt.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2017, 10:02:44 pm by MK14 »
 

Offline ajb

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #2 on: July 18, 2017, 05:44:27 pm »
Cramming all of this into the PIC32 part numbering seems needlessly confusing.  They already list Atmel's UC3 and SAM families under the PIC32 banner, but at least preserve the Atmel part numbers so you can easily see what's what.  The least they could do is call the new cortex models "PIC32M0", etc., or something. 
 
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Online tszaboo

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #3 on: July 18, 2017, 06:16:35 pm »
Atmel's SAM product line was already confusing as hell.
Like, what is the difference between SAM4S and DAM4N? One said:
Converging Performance and Simplicity
The other:
Scalable Performance, Memory Density and Power Efficiency
Thank you very much. That is soo much more informative, than saying that the STM32F4 is faster with more stuff than a STM32F3. Now, microchip tries to confuse you with even more.
 
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Offline snarkysparky

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #4 on: July 18, 2017, 06:47:17 pm »
Will they keep Atmel Studio or merge it into MPLAPX.

How about the free GCC compiler.

 

Offline Howardlong

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #5 on: July 18, 2017, 07:43:39 pm »
I don't have any experience of Atmel ARM Cortex frameworks, but I don't see Harmony as a benefit by any stretch of the imagination, it's over four years old and still barely what I'd rate as beta software, not to mention a huge learning curve and vendor lock in.
 

Online JPortici

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #6 on: July 18, 2017, 08:12:40 pm »
Cramming all of this into the PIC32 part numbering seems needlessly confusing.  They already list Atmel's UC3 and SAM families under the PIC32 banner, but at least preserve the Atmel part numbers so you can easily see what's what.  The least they could do is call the new cortex models "PIC32M0", etc., or something. 

I think, M- for MIPS, C- for Cortex. i don't find it confusing at all

between harmony and ASF i would have preferred to have ASF, but with PIC32.
 

Offline hans

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #7 on: July 18, 2017, 08:39:50 pm »
Will they keep Atmel Studio or merge it into MPLAPX.

How about the free GCC compiler.

The nice thing about ARM is you don't have to use their IDE, there are generic ones like IAR, Keil etc. that also work. Just don't ask the price tag.

Not sure about MPLABX integration. On 1 hand cross platform is great, OTOH if you're on Windows then Visual Studio is the IDE to get. The NetBeans IDE choice is absolutely atrious, and last week I had to use which remembered me how much I hate it comparing to IDE's like QT Creator or CLion.

Fortunately for ARM you can roll your own toolchain with almost any GCC/GDB IDE. The GCC compiler is not 'owned' by Microchip fortunately. For ARM there is openocd support for most mainstream chips, which makes the need for their IDE less and less.
 

Offline andersmTopic starter

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #8 on: July 18, 2017, 08:48:12 pm »
Will they keep Atmel Studio or merge it into MPLAPX.

How about the free GCC compiler.
I would assume Microchip will integrate ARM support into MPLAB X. Atmel Studio only supports Windows, and Microchip seem committed to also support Linux and macOS. I wouldn't be surprised if they added licensing to the ARM compiler, but fortunately there's no shortage of completely gratis ARM GCC distributions, so there's no particular reason to use theirs. Microchip aren't using a single codebase even for their existing compilers (current XC16 is based on GCC 4.5.1 while XC32 is based on GCC 4.8.3), so I don't see them unifying their compiler anytime soon (Atmel's GCC is based on GCC 5.3.1).

I think, M- for MIPS, C- for Cortex. i don't find it confusing at all
There's also the PIC32WK, which is MIPS-based with WiFi.

Offline NorthGuy

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #9 on: July 18, 2017, 09:24:04 pm »
There's also the PIC32WK, which is MIPS-based with WiFi.

I suspect WK will only be sold as a part of WiFi module.

As to CZ. Getting Atmel chips and renaming them as PIC32 does look confusing to me. It would be Ok if it was Microchip periphery with ARM core so that it would have some resemblance to PICs. But it doesn't appear to be a case.

I don't know if they're going to support Atmel chips besides 32-bit ones. If they mark all newer versions of AT chips as PICs it'll certainly look like a mess.
 

Offline Sal Ammoniac

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #10 on: July 18, 2017, 10:09:29 pm »
This is confusing as hell. It will just dilute both the existing PIC32 line and the Atmel Cortex-M line needlessly.
Complexity is the number-one enemy of high-quality code.
 

Online JPortici

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #11 on: July 19, 2017, 06:25:52 am »
Will they keep Atmel Studio or merge it into MPLAPX.

How about the free GCC compiler.
I would assume Microchip will integrate ARM support into MPLAB X. Atmel Studio only supports Windows, and Microchip seem committed to also support Linux and macOS. I wouldn't be surprised if they added licensing to the ARM compiler, but fortunately there's no shortage of completely gratis ARM GCC distributions, so there's no particular reason to use theirs. Microchip aren't using a single codebase even for their existing compilers (current XC16 is based on GCC 4.5.1 while XC32 is based on GCC 4.8.3), so I don't see them unifying their compiler anytime soon (Atmel's GCC is based on GCC 5.3.1).

I think, M- for MIPS, C- for Cortex. i don't find it confusing at all
There's also the PIC32WK, which is MIPS-based with WiFi.

yes, W- for Wireless :)

Oh, a complete version of visual studio for mac was released first months of this year (before it was only visual studio code, a code editor) but i can't seem to be able to install it? 15 GB install wants more than 40 GB of download, my laptop doesn't have that much space available. and installer is bugged, so if i want to remove the biggest component (Android, with its 10 GB of crap) it crashes :palm:

*Theoretically* since XC16 and XC32 are gcc you should be able to use them with any IDE but i don't think i've seen anything but experiments
 

Offline andersmTopic starter

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #12 on: July 19, 2017, 10:23:07 am »
Oh, a complete version of visual studio for mac was released first months of this year (before it was only visual studio code, a code editor) but i can't seem to be able to install it?
AFAIK it's a rebranded version of Xamarin Studio, and only supports .NET development.

Quote
*Theoretically* since XC16 and XC32 are gcc you should be able to use them with any IDE but i don't think i've seen anything but experiments
Yes, they don't differ from other versions of GCC in that regard, and MPLAB X itself uses makefiles and GNU Make under the hood. But you still need something for programming and debugging. MPLAB X comes with some scriptable CLI tools for programming, and OpenOCD supports (some) PIC32Ms over JTAG, but I don't know of a suitable embeddable solution for debugging.

Offline MT

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #13 on: July 19, 2017, 10:46:16 pm »
Atmel's SAM product line was already confusing as hell.
Like, what is the difference between SAM4S and DAM4N? One said:
Converging Performance and Simplicity
The other:
Scalable Performance, Memory Density and Power Efficiency
Thank you very much. That is soo much more informative, than saying that the STM32F4 is faster with more stuff than a STM32F3. Now, microchip tries to confuse you with even more.

ST/Freescale is awfully confusing as well , e.g sorting out differences between F4 devices has become tedious
throwing in price and the whole hoopla have become silly. ST have become "Microchipped".
 

Offline ElektroQuark

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #14 on: July 20, 2017, 04:28:49 am »
Any link to official news about those PIC32 Cortex?

Online JPortici

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #15 on: July 20, 2017, 05:34:25 am »
Atmel's SAM product line was already confusing as hell.
Like, what is the difference between SAM4S and DAM4N? One said:
Converging Performance and Simplicity
The other:
Scalable Performance, Memory Density and Power Efficiency
Thank you very much. That is soo much more informative, than saying that the STM32F4 is faster with more stuff than a STM32F3. Now, microchip tries to confuse you with even more.

ST/Freescale is awfully confusing as well , e.g sorting out differences between F4 devices has become tedious
throwing in price and the whole hoopla have become silly. ST have become "Microchipped".

pic16 ARE confusing... but one has just to remember that -> doesn't start with "1" like PIC16FXXX, part is old as dirt. starts with "1" like PIC16F1xxx, part is recent.. now the newest of 'em all are PIC16F1xxxx <- five digits and mostly are enhancement over their four digits with simillar name.. 1823 vs 18323

pic18 are a bit less confusing, first digit is number of decades of pins, second digit is size, the rest are family.

dspic are as easy as possible dspic33xxYYYzzKKK
xx: core (F, older slower, E newer. other letter the sub-type of core)
YYY: flash size
zz: family (GP,GM,GS, ...)
KKK: related to pinout

pic 32 are just as easy
PIC32xxYYYzzKmmm
x: type of core, MX,MZ,MM,MK,WK, ..
y: flash size
z: family of chips
K: last letter is type of peripherals, sequential. like E F G is base, with canbus, with also crypto.
mmm: number of pins

not that hard i think
 

Offline alm

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #16 on: July 20, 2017, 05:47:33 am »
pic 32 are just as easy
Clearly they are working to rectify that by mixing ARM Cortex M parts in. Next order of business: rename ATtiny/ATmega/Xmega parts to PIC18.

Offline karpouzi

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #17 on: July 25, 2017, 02:08:54 pm »
PIC32CZ CA70/GC70 TCM

Microchip's PIC32CZ CA70/GC70 Flash microcontrollers have the following features.

• High Performance Core
– ARM® Cortex®-M7 processor running up to 300 MHz
– 16 KB Instruction-Cache and 16 KB Data-Cache
– Memory Protection Unit (MPU) with 16 zones
– Single-pecision and Double-precision HW Floating Point Unit (FPU)

• Advanced Memory Architecture
– Up to 2048 KB embedded Flash
– Up to 384 KB embedded four-port SRAM
– 16 KB ROM with embedded Boot Loader routines
– No-wait-state TCM: programmable in one of four configurations to meet diverse application requirements
 

Offline andersmTopic starter

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #18 on: July 31, 2017, 05:35:45 am »
Just noticed that in XC32 1.44, pic32mx/include/xc.h now reads
Code: [Select]
#if defined(__PIC32C)
#include <xc-pic32c.h>
#else /* defined(__PIC32M) */
#include <xc-pic32m.h>
#endif
The xc-pic32c.h header isn't included in the install, but it suggests that Microchip may be looking to unify their compiler support sooner rather than later, or at least the part support files.

Offline andersmTopic starter

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #19 on: August 03, 2017, 08:59:50 pm »
The new project wizard in MPLAB X 3.65 has a "pic32c" entry when selecting the device type, so I guess the IDE support is confirmed? Selecting the device type just causes an exception notification for now.

Offline westfw

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #20 on: August 07, 2017, 08:17:04 pm »
Hey look!  An actual product announcment!

https://www.microchip.com/pressreleasepage/microchip-launches-sam-d5x-e5x-microcontroller-families

Microchip "SAMD5x" and "SAME5x" chips!

Continuing an Atmel tradition of poorly conceived chip names (ala ATmega328PB), these are Cortex M4F chips joining the (formerly all CM0) SAMD line and (formerly all CM7) SAME line.  I almost wish they HAD been named PIC32Cxx or something.  Sigh.

Other than the names, they look like pretty sweet chips.  I wonder how long till they're actually buyable?
 

Offline andersmTopic starter

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #21 on: August 11, 2017, 11:45:53 am »
The newly released MPLAB X 4.00 now integrates Atmel's ARM and AVR compilers. No mention in the release notes of programming or debugging tough.

Online JPortici

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #22 on: August 12, 2017, 06:02:54 am »
MPLABX 4? when did that happen? no release notification yesterday... and no fanfare of emails announcements.

should i donwload an keep aside a version of atmel studio "just in case"?

To be honest, i don't think it would have gone differently, X being multiplatform and AS being windows only..

Quote from: What's New in v4.00
MPLAB ICD 4 support – Support for the new MPLAB ICD 4 in-circuit debugger/production programmer.
Cool.

http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/50002596A.pdf

ICSP and JTAG, wonder if it will do anthing other than pics and maybe atmel parts?
« Last Edit: August 12, 2017, 06:17:22 am by JPortici »
 
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Offline ElektroQuark

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #23 on: August 12, 2017, 06:29:04 am »
There a reference to ARM.

Offline andersmTopic starter

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Re: PIC32 Cortex-Ms
« Reply #24 on: August 12, 2017, 08:23:05 am »
http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/50002596A.pdf
According to the block diagram on page 16, the ICD4 uses a PIC32C MCU, which I find amusing. The advertised 300MHz clock speed matches the PIC32CZ series, and it's also got the external bus interface used for communicating with the FPGA.


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