Some fear that The List will die. So let's jump the next bandwagon: ARM
chips. (note: I vote that we keep the name. piclist is a well-known
brand.)

Personally I think PICs are still interesting, especially the smaller
14-bit core chips. It is very easy to put a 6, 8 or 14 pin PIC chip into
a design. One voltage, small package, choice of SMD or DIP, internal
oscillator, 5V. Compared to that an ARM chip (for instance an LCP2103)
is much more hassle. But even a small ARM chip runs circles around an
18F or dsPIC.

So, who is using what ARM chips and what for?

I use ARM chips in a series of classes. For informatics students these
are the last-year LPC2106 boards with LSP, LCD, buttons, LEDs, RS232,
and build-in Wiggler clone. They use C++. For electronics students we
use the this-year boards with LPC2148, which adds USB and a PIC (!) as
keyboard controller (deja-vue?). They use assembler and/or C. We hacked
together a development environment based on PSPad, GCC and GDB/Insight.
Works quite well, but a little rough on some edges. I am working on a
realy great ARM library, which might be ready some time next year (do
you smell vapourware?).

I have not yet used ARMs for my own projects, but hope to do so when a
new project arrives (and my library is ready).

I sell ARM chips and Olimex ARM boards. Not in high volumes, but enough
to be interesting.

So what about you?

Wouter van Ooijen

-- -------------------------------------------
Van Ooijen Technische Informatica: www.voti.nl
consultancy, development, PICmicro products
docent Hogeschool van Utrecht: www.voti.nl/hvu
 
 

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