It’s been a while since I worked with microcontrollers and I wanted see what’s around today. I was used to 8-bit PICs, because they where cheap, as well as the programmers (you could make your own in less than an hour), and because of the great range of available development environments.

But things have changed! 32-bit micro’s are so cheap now, and most manufacturers have realized that they must provide their development tools for free. So I purchased a $99 32-bit PSoC ARM development board from Cypress.

But the PSoC (Programmable System on Chip) is not just a powerful microcontroller, it’s also a CPLD and a programmable analog circuit containing op-amps, mixers, DACs, ADCs, filters, etc. In addition to that, their IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is excellent, unlimited and free. No need to guess how to setup anything, the graphical environment is self explicative and context-relevant documentation is a button-click away.

Thank you Cypress!