1. Home
  2. Embedded Programming
  3. Industry Standards?

Industry Standards?

I'm about to embark on an embedded system as part of my final year project at University. The kit they have in the labs is mainly PICs with C2C compiler. Is this kit used in industry to any extent, or is it the sort of kit used in colleges to teach students but rarely used elsewhere? Is there any particular architecture and development environment that would be better to start with, from a future employment perspective?

Thanks for any advice.

Cheers,

Simon

(remove gastropods from address to reply)

Reply to
Simon
Loading thread data ...

Where the PIC is suitable it is used in industry quite successfully. However, there are some who seem to think it is the answer to all embedded system requirements and hence fail miserably. I would get used to looking at a number of parameters based on the requirements of your project and choose a processor that is suitable for that. Industry, fortunately, uses a wide variety of processors.

--
********************************************************************
Paul E. Bennett ....................
Forth based HIDECS Consultancy .....
Mob: +44 (0)7811-639972
Tel: +44 (0)1235-811095
Going Forth Safely ....EBA. http://www.electric-boat-association.org.uk/********************************************************************
Reply to
Paul E. Bennett

a

I agree, the pic thing is quite suitable for entry level and small projects.. however you would be better off learning at least 8051, 68HCxx, ARM and MSP430.. you will find these devices, unlike the pic, have mature generally bug free professional tools ( compilers/debuggers/profilers etc.. ) for future employment, I would suggest you take a look at ARM.

Reply to
TheDoc

There is a huge number of controller families and development tools, and it is impossible to know them all. For this reason the actual controller and toolchain chosen doesn't matter because the students will surely have different ones later on in their job.

The labs should teach students basic principles of operation and programming. All product knowledge will be obsolete within the next two years.

Personally, I find the Atmel AVR controllers best for teaching because of the straightforward architecture and the avalability of free development tools including gcc compiler. Students will be able to build their own boards, ISP download cables, jtag debugger and start own projects at home in their spare time (or as homework), and they will gain much more experience with this than by attending just a few hours in the lab.

For PICs there is no good free c compiler and no real good free replacement for the ICD2.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Frank-Christian Krügel

Reply to
Frank-Christian Kruegel

"Frank-Christian Kruegel" writes: [snip]

This is a really good point. Using gcc makes life simple; having the manufacturer support easy programming is even better.

There is sdcc - have you tried it?

Now that's a recurrent problem.

picp will program most pics, but doesn't provide any way to do the debugging thing. I'm a little surprised no-one has reverse-engineered the ICD methodology...

cheers, Rich.

--
rich walker         |  Shadow Robot Company | rw@shadow.org.uk
technical director     251 Liverpool Road   |
need a Hand?           London  N1 1LX       | +UK 20 7700 2487
www.shadow.org.uk/products/newhand.shtml
Reply to
Rich Walker

PICTerrogator can be used for ICD

look here

formatting link

Reply to
ElliotC

Well, pretty close :->

Still only supports Windows, requires RS-232 on your PIC board, and doesn't do PIC18 - otherwise, I'm in :->

cheers, Rich.

--
rich walker         |  Shadow Robot Company | rw@shadow.org.uk
technical director     251 Liverpool Road   |
need a Hand?           London  N1 1LX       | +UK 20 7700 2487
www.shadow.org.uk/products/newhand.shtml
Reply to
Rich Walker

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.