PSoC Creator questions

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zzz_3221081
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Hi there,

I recently came across the PSoC Creator (and a distributor's sales pitch), and it looks quite interesting.

Not being completely new to the business, I have the following questions:

1. The FM3 and FM4 Fujitsu/Spansion "legacy" devices are not supported. Is that correct ?

2. What are the general experiences concerning:

- flexibility (covered use cases of peripherals and peripheral combinations) ?

- code bloat and performance loss, compared to a decent hand-written code ?

I have seen & tried similar tools from competitors (e.g. ST and Freescale/NXP), which did not really impress me, for one or the other reason.

Thanks,

  Frank

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1 Solution

Frank,

I use PSoCs for a few years. My general experience is that they are solid micros with good support and tons of documentation. PSoCs offer more hardware options on the chip then other micros, like hardware triggering, pins can be re-assigned in software, and there are typically no issues with lack of SysTick etc., which gives extra flexibility in use, but the hardware itself often of lesser grade (e.g. 12-bit ADC vs. 14-bit, 8-bit DAC vs. 12-bit, etc.). PSoC chips and development boards are usually more expensive than competitors'; I've heard people saying that they use PSoCs in the 'lab', and other micros for production. PSoC community and open code base for PSoCs is small as compared to other chips, so do not expect to find ready-to use library often. Also, development cycle at Cypress is slower, so there is some lag in new PSoC models. The P4200 you mentioned is a basic model which is several years old. But since you already have it it is worth playing with it to get feeling. I would recommend latest PSoC6 gumstick (Cortex M4+M0 combo)

https://www.cypress.com/documentation/development-kitsboards/psoc-6-wi-fi-bt-prototyping-kit-cy8cpro...

or old and trusted PSoC5 (Cortex M3)

https://www.cypress.com/documentation/development-kitsboards/cy8ckit-059-psoc-5lp-prototyping-kit-on...

or PSoC4 M-series (+DMA), (Cortex M0)

https://www.cypress.com/documentation/development-kitsboards/cy8ckit-043-psoc-4-m-series-prototyping...

/odissey1

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4 Replies
DheerajK_81
Moderator
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First comment on KBA First comment on blog 5 questions asked

Answering your questions:

1. The FM3 and FM4 Fujitsu/Spansion "legacy" devices are not supported. Is that correct ?

Ans. There is no support for FM3 and FM4 in PSoC Creator. They are only supported by third party IDEs like IAR Embedded Workbench, Keil Embedded Development Tools etc.

2. What are the general experiences concerning:

- flexibility (covered use cases of peripherals and peripheral combinations) ?

Ans. I'm not sure in what respect you are talking about flexibility, but regarding using the tool to create applications, there is lot of flexibility in terms of different functionalities on a pin, configuring an SCB block in any of the UART, I2C, SPI modes etc. and different combinations on peripherals ofcourse keeping in mind the resources provided by the hardware.

- code bloat and performance loss, compared to a decent hand-written code ?

Ans. Creator doesn't add any code bloat to reduce performance.

Regards,

Dheeraj

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Thanks for taking the time to answer. I know, the questions are quite generic.

I'm not sure in what respect you are talking about flexibility,...

I must admit I did not yet dig into PSoC datasheets, I currently only have a PSoC4200 eval board.

But most "serious" applications require peripheral interconnections, like timer-triggered actions, or input data processing (like UART, SPI, etc.) via DMA or interrupt, alternatively.

Background for this question are experiences with another, similar tool, which implements either a limited number of use cases (or creates bugs for certain combinations).

Ans. Creator doesn't add any code bloat to reduce performance.

I did not want the question to sound negative, but any library, HAL, or other abstraction adds comprehensibility and portability at the expense of code size, runtime, and resource usage. It's just as it is, and I'm basically o.k. with that.

Again, I could cite some negative experiences with a competitor's tool that grabs precious resources (like the SysTick interrupt), frequently uses semi-clever coding techniques like busy-wait loops, and adds plenty of bugs on top.

OTOH, one of my former companies, which mass-produced electronics, had a very different approach. They used the smallest/cheapest possible MCU, ad-hoc coding without any library or regard for compatibility/portability, and increased development times - only to keep the BOM costs as low as possible.

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Frank,

I use PSoCs for a few years. My general experience is that they are solid micros with good support and tons of documentation. PSoCs offer more hardware options on the chip then other micros, like hardware triggering, pins can be re-assigned in software, and there are typically no issues with lack of SysTick etc., which gives extra flexibility in use, but the hardware itself often of lesser grade (e.g. 12-bit ADC vs. 14-bit, 8-bit DAC vs. 12-bit, etc.). PSoC chips and development boards are usually more expensive than competitors'; I've heard people saying that they use PSoCs in the 'lab', and other micros for production. PSoC community and open code base for PSoCs is small as compared to other chips, so do not expect to find ready-to use library often. Also, development cycle at Cypress is slower, so there is some lag in new PSoC models. The P4200 you mentioned is a basic model which is several years old. But since you already have it it is worth playing with it to get feeling. I would recommend latest PSoC6 gumstick (Cortex M4+M0 combo)

https://www.cypress.com/documentation/development-kitsboards/psoc-6-wi-fi-bt-prototyping-kit-cy8cpro...

or old and trusted PSoC5 (Cortex M3)

https://www.cypress.com/documentation/development-kitsboards/cy8ckit-059-psoc-5lp-prototyping-kit-on...

or PSoC4 M-series (+DMA), (Cortex M0)

https://www.cypress.com/documentation/development-kitsboards/cy8ckit-043-psoc-4-m-series-prototyping...

/odissey1

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Thanks.

To explain myself a bit, my company uses several legacy controllers "inherited" from Fujitsu (FR60, FFMC-16, FM4), and I have a few FM4-based eval boards laying around. Hence my question about FM3/FM4 support.

The P4200 was a free gift from the last distributor's visit. Despite a bit under-powered for many applications, it is a good starting point for experiments.

Also, development cycle at Cypress is slower, so there is some lag in new PSoC models.

Yes, I realized that. Other vendors have M7 with double-precision FPU and >300MHz core clock.

But what use is such a high performance device if it has only low-quality documentation, or a bug-ridden code generation tool ?

Having worked through many M0, M3 and M4 datasheets the last years, I just don't feel like it anymore, nor do I have the time to write every single code line myself.

PSoCs offer more hardware options on the chip then other micros,...

I definitely need to look into that. Peripherals is where a Cortex M MCU family shines (or not). The core is basically identical.

...and there are typically no issues with lack of SysTick etc.

Systick was an example of the undesired resource grab of a competitor's code generation tool.

I used to organize my code and the application timing around the Systick interrupt. And said code generator wastes it solely for busy-wait loops.

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