MCUs with USB device in PDIP and a open source toolchain ?

I'm trying to find out what MCUs have a USB device capability and are available in PDIP with a open source toolchain. Up until now, I've either used various serial interfaces on AVRs, or preassembled ARM boards, but now I need to build some small circuits with USB device built in.

This is what I currently know about:

HC08 (The JB8 is far too limited for my needs) PIC18F (Lousy, lousy architecture) PIC24F ([USB OTG] Better architecture, but gcc/binutils port not in mainline) PIC32MX ([USB OTG] A interesting discovery, but I know nothing about MIPS yet)

I've also looked at the AVR, ARM and MSP430 MCUs but didn't find anything in PDIP with USB device.

(I also looked for USB to SPI ICs in PDIP but I would strongly prefer the USB capability to be in the MCU itself.)

Are there any options I've missed ?

[As I only need USB device, and I know nothing about the PIC32MX yet, (and have no development infrastructure setup to use it yet) it's looking like the PIC18F is the one I am probably going to have to use.]

Thanks,

Simon.

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Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
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Simon Clubley
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Hi Simon,

The DIP requirement is a HUGE restriction, eliminating 99.99% of the parts out there, and a lot of interesting new chips. If it is for your own use perhaps reconsider the SMT parts, they are perfectly amenable to manual assembly and a range of DIP adapters are available for various packages if you really need that.

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John Devereux
Reply to
John Devereux

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The PIC32MX has sample code (that actually worked for me!) for implementing USB. Admittedly that was for a starter kit. I have built projects for the PIC32 using my own board and one more-or-less doesn't need to know much about the MIPS architecture.

Reply to
Rocky

Hello,

Yes, it's for my own hobbyist use.

Unlike the software side of things, (where I am quite capable of, for example, writing yet another BSP or device driver on demand as and when needed), when it comes to hardware, I still prefer to work in PDIP for my own circuits.

Some of that is not wanting PCB chemicals around at home or wanting to have to wait for PCBs to be made up. Some of that is that it's so easy to prototype when using PDIP sized through-hole parts.

I do like the idea of using DIP adapters though, especially if they were reasonably priced. It would allow me to work with non-PDIP parts while continuing to work in a otherwise PDIP sized world.

Simon.

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Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world
Reply to
Simon Clubley

There is a software USB device for AVR ATMega:

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I tried it and it worked.

WP

Reply to
WP

Sample code from a manufacturer which works. What a unusual concept. :-)

One of the things about me is that I like to have a firm understanding of any architecture/device I use, which means among other things writing my own driver/BSP/etc code when possible.

Also, writing that code is something I enjoy doing and it's also a learning opportunity as well. In a work environment, you couldn't justify doing that if the code already existed in some vaguely useful form, but in a hobbyist environment, you can.

Unfortunately this little project is something I want to complete as soon as possible so it looks like it's going to be the practical option (PIC18F) instead of the nice new device option (PIC32MX).

Thanks for the information though; it's something to keep in mind.

Simon.

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Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
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Reply to
Simon Clubley

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I had forgotten about that software USB stack.

Unfortunately, for this application I would prefer a hardware based USB device as I will be running code which has real time requirements and I don't want to get into having to evaluate how this stack would affect the real time capability of other code running on the AVR.

I would also need to assess what general overheads this implementation would incur.

Thanks for the pointer however; I appreciate you having suggested it.

Simon.

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Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
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Simon Clubley

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You could also use an FTDI-chip UM245R module, which is only about $20 for a piece, and comes in a sort of wide DIP module size. I think there may even be some vendors which sell cheaper rip-offs of this.

The beauty of this is that on the host PC side, it just looks like a virtual COM port, so you don't have to write any special drivers. And, the baud rate is effectively meaningless in this case, it simply goes up to 12Mbit per second (or maybe slightly less). Then if you have any MCU with an 8-bit parallel IO bus plus a few control pins, you can move data in and out a whole byte at a time. The end result is that it's nice and fast, probably much faster than the software USB stack in the AVR, and faster than using the PIC USB API as a CDC-ACM device.

Reply to
sbattazzo

The other way is I think there may be some of the very low cost development boards in a DIP form factor. Some of them are not much more than a USB socket and the chip. Sorry don't have any specific recommendations.

But really a DIP adapter is the way to go, somewhere like sparkfun might have something.

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John Devereux
Reply to
John Devereux

I hear that NXP have one DIP package ARM CPU (LPC1114) in development statu= s, but not USB. DIPs are pretty thin on the ground in this segment, and eve= n less with USB.

I am in a similar boat, I try to avoid getting too deep into hardware maufa= cturing, so I sympathise with the PDIP problem, but PDIP adaptors are thing= s you can buy cheaply off ebay or order yourself fairly easily. Soldering t= hem is another thing, I find my standard 0.1 techniques don't work so well!

I am currently looking at designing some 0.1 friendly CPU modules, similar = to the Opendous LPC1343 design

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Older_Designs. I have ordered some boards from BatchPCB. Atmel, NXP, and ST= M all have cheap ARMs which are easily available, I'd like to get designs f= or each of them, in a 40 pin DIP package, and also maybe an SMT module. Alt= hough, the STM discovery board is so cheap it would be hard to beat the pri= ce.

Reply to
Bob

The task of putting a modern microcontroller on a board with DIP-spaced pins has already been done for you. Look at the various development boards at

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For example:

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Mark Borgerson

Reply to
Mark Borgerson

but not USB. DIPs are pretty thin on the ground in this segment, and even less with USB.

Why are there suddenly a lot of posts on usenet (not only Bob's) with very long lines? Is there some google groups usenet client that no longer breaks long lines? In some posts I now have to scroll hundreds of chard to the right to be able to read it all.

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Stef    (remove caps, dashes and .invalid from e-mail address to reply by mail)

Paul Revere was a tattle-tale.
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Stef

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Works well.

And free software too !

Reply to
hamilton

Yeah, sorry about that. Google group's web interface annoyingly broken.

Reply to
Bob

Done, at a price. Thing about hobbyists, is they tend to be on a budget. I guess beginners might be prepared to pay 5x the cost of a chip just to get it onto a convenient package, which is the market Sparkfun and others aim at.

mBed is nice, good libraries, not the cheapest; free, no limit web based compiler. Not every task needs 512KB though, a cheaper package with say 16/32KB would be desirable.

Reply to
Bob

Curiously, I post via Google web interface and all the lines are trimmed to round-about 70 odd characters. Are you using the 'new' version?

Reply to
Rocky

I have a keyboard with a "return" key. Seems to help with that problem. YMMV

Reply to
mike

A "return" key? You sure?

I just checked all of my computers and they all have an "enter" key.

No luck finding the "any" key though.

Reply to
Dennis

Then consider getting a batch of Schmart boards see

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Various pin pitch and sizes, with the design making iteasy to hand solder devices in.

I have knocked up some proof of principles circuits with these inerlocking 3 or four together. Even USB 2.0 hub chips and other devices like PLDs.

I have often stacked them on top of 0.1 in strip board using 1mm tinned copper wire as standoff and ground connection.

Then you can use a lot of other devices

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Paul Carpenter          | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
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Paul

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Another consideration could be the Parallax Propeller chip. It doesn't have a hardware USB, but I suppose it is possible to reserve one of the COG to handle USB communication and use the remaining COGs for the real-time tasks.

I don't have experience with this chip. Parallax seems to be mainly targeting hobbyists, and the Propeller chip appears to be a hobbyist friendly device. However it is not exactly a mainstream architecture and must programmed in assembly or SPIN. A (free) C compiler for this chip seems exist, though my understanding is that the architecture of this chip is less than ideal for C.

Reply to
Dombo

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