Microchip finally buys Atmel

[Steven Donaldson]

I'm a little surprised I haven't seen anyone else post this.  About a week ago this was announced, but I recall hearing talk of this more than 5 years ago... 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/business/dealbook/microchip-technology-to-buy-atmel-for-nearly-3-6-billion.html?_r=0

[John Rehwinkel]

I'm a little surprised I haven't seen anyone else post this.  About a week ago this was announced, but I recall hearing talk of this more than 5 years ago... 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/business/dealbook/microchip-technology-to-buy-atmel-for-nearly-3-6-billion.html?_r=0

Actually, it's the first I'd heard about it.  I had started with the Microchip PIC line of microcontrollers, but grew dissatisfied with Microchip's attitude.  They only supported MS-DOS with their tools, their programmer protocol was proprietary and undocumented, and they were really cagey about answering technical questions.  Their flash chips were also expensive, so I'd develop on the UV-erase

ones and deploy with the OTP versions.  I went ahead with a third-party programmer, but the newer PIC chips had a different programming algorithm, and the firmware update for the programmer

to support those chips removed support for the documented serial protocol.  Another annoyance was that the C compiler was expensive, so I had to do all my programming in assembler.

I did a lot of research and looked at many architectures before settling on the Atmel AVR line, with their strong flash support (Atmel was a big flash memory manufacturer), their $79 demo board that also served as an in-circuit programmer (open source, with a documented protocol, too), widely available tool set, and gcc support so I could program in C.

Over the years, Microchip slowly learned how the market works, and eventually did document their programmer protocol, and even made a hamhanded attempt to offer their tools for modern operating systems, but they still had the horrid UI typical of MS-DOS software, and were horrible bloatware.

The Arduino people also settled on the AVR architecture for their initial rollout, giving away a complete portable tool chain, affordable boards with bootloaders, and offering an environment where you didn't have to worry about details like fuse settings, bringing huge numbers of people into the AVR fold.

I'm a little dubious about Microchip taking over, and it would be a shame if they attempted to shut down the AVR line, programmers, tools, and support.

Fortunately by now, the Arduino movement has branched out, and supports a wide variety of other CPU architectures (ARM, MSP430, LXP, the pointless Intel efforts, and many others), so even if Microchip kills off that cash cow, I'll have my pick of architectures to move to (these days, you can get a serious ARM CPU in DIP format, useful for breadboarding).  However, I hope they leave well enough alone.

- John

[David Forbes]

John,

I also hope that the AVR series keeps living, as it drives the world of
makers.

I live in Tucson, not far from Microchip's Chandler AZ headquarters, and
Steve Sanghi, their CEO, is a big supporter of high school robotics in
Arizona. I've spoken with him several times. I'll ask him about the
future of AVR when I see him in March at the FIRST Robotics regional.

On 1/26/16 10:24 PM, John Rehwinkel wrote:
>
> I'm a little dubious about Microchip taking over, and it would be a shame if they attempted to shut down the AVR line, programmers, tools, and support.
>
> Fortunately by now, the Arduino movement has branched out, and supports a wide variety of other CPU architectures (ARM, MSP430, LXP, the pointless Intel efforts, and many others), so even if Microchip kills off that cash cow, I'll have my pick of architectures to move to (these days, you can get a serious ARM CPU in DIP format, useful for breadboarding). However, I hope they leave well enough alone.
>
> - John
>

--
David Forbes, Tucson AZ

[NeonJohn]

On 01/27/2016 12:24 AM, John Rehwinkel wrote:

> I did a lot of research and looked at many architectures before
> settling on the Atmel AVR line, with their strong flash support
> (Atmel was a big flash memory manufacturer), their $79 demo board
> that also served as an in-circuit programmer (open source, with a
> documented protocol, too), widely available tool set, and gcc support
> so I could program in C.

Early on, I took one look at the PIC architecture and dev environment,
puked and stayed with the tried and true 8051. Then Atmel came along.
Angles sang. Harps played.. OK, well I am getting carried away a bit.

>
> Over the years, Microchip slowly learned how the market works, and
> eventually did document their programmer protocol, and even made a
> hamhanded attempt to offer their tools for modern operating systems,
> but they still had the horrid UI typical of MS-DOS software, and were
> horrible bloatware.

Atmel isn't much better with their Studio environment. Fortunately
there are the GNU toolchains.

> I'm a little dubious about Microchip taking over, and it would be a
> shame if they attempted to shut down the AVR line, programmers,
> tools, and support.

They bought Atmel because Atmel is winning and MicroChip is losing in
the embedded market. The hobbyists are a tiny segment. The commercial
and consumer side are where they are winning. We're a tiny manufacturer
but we've used well over a thousand AT90PWMs.

If you take stuff apart to see what's inside like I do, you'll notice
that more and more Atmel parts are winning design-ins whereas a few
years ago PICs would have ruled.

>
> Fortunately by now, the Arduino movement has branched out, and
> supports a wide variety of other CPU architectures (ARM, MSP430, LXP,
> the pointless Intel efforts, and many others), so even if Microchip
> kills off that cash cow, I'll have my pick of architectures to move
> to (these days, you can get a serious ARM CPU in DIP format, useful
> for breadboarding). However, I hope they leave well enough alone.

I do too. I'm results-oriented (I enjoy seeing the results of my work,
not the work itself) so I don't want to have to learn another
architecture if I don't have to. I am dipping my toes in the ARM waters
but there are so damn many variations... Already made one mistake with
the BeagleBoard Black.

John



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[Nick]

+1 on hating the PIC "architecture".

I was always an AVR man, then I discovered the MSP430 series... :)

Nick

[NeonJohn]

On 01/27/2016 09:22 AM, Nick wrote:
> +1 on hating the PIC "architecture".
>
> I was always an AVR man, then I discovered the MSP430 series... :)

Interesting. I plugged MPS430 into mouser and what came up is a large
100 pin chip that is fairly expensive. Are there smaller versions in
the series? I guess I have a lot of reading to do.

I'm in a quandary. In upcoming products, I need more power than the
AVRs can provide. I feel like I should be on the ARM bandwagon but I
have no idea where to start. This TI chip looks interesting but it
chaps me to have to pay for dev tools. Yeah, I know the GNU chain is
free but sometimes one just has to have a source code debugger.

[Steven Donaldson]

I  myself have done very little hobby microcontroller work.  My nixie clock is all discrete, but I got a bunch of sample PICs before I left school.  I pulled them out the other day and started wiring an xxF87 for a 14 segment display and thermometer.  Haven't gotten to the code yet.

At work, we use primarily MSP430s, which are easy and I should have gone with for this project.  Some older projects are on a PIC.  A previous job used AVR for some small things like power-up control.  Those had previously been PIC but there was an issue of the PIC loosing it's programming randomly (not sure any details).  

It will be interesting to see how things shake out.

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[David Forbes]

John,

TI makes a thing called the Tiva C Launchpad. A sub $20 ARM board with
USB (even Ethernet on some models!). It can be programmed with Energia,
which is a spinoff of the Arduino IDE.

Basically, an Arduino style board with a lot more CPU power.

I still haven't found how to integrate the CPU into a user project
without the board, while retaining the easy reprogramming. The LaunchPad
boards have TWO ARM CPUs on them.

The $20 board with Ethernet
http://www.ti.com/tool/ek-tm4c1294xl

The $13 board without Ethernet
http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad/launchpads-connected-ek-tm4c123gxl.html

On 1/27/16 9:06 AM, NeonJohn wrote:
>
>
> On 01/27/2016 09:22 AM, Nick wrote:
>> +1 on hating the PIC "architecture".
>>
>> I was always an AVR man, then I discovered the MSP430 series... :)
>
> Interesting. I plugged MPS430 into mouser and what came up is a large
> 100 pin chip that is fairly expensive. Are there smaller versions in
> the series? I guess I have a lot of reading to do.
>
> I'm in a quandary. In upcoming products, I need more power than the
> AVRs can provide. I feel like I should be on the ARM bandwagon but I
> have no idea where to start. This TI chip looks interesting but it
> chaps me to have to pay for dev tools. Yeah, I know the GNU chain is
> free but sometimes one just has to have a source code debugger.
>
> John
>
>


--

David Forbes, Tucson AZ

[Nick]

The whole MSP430 toolchain is free. You only pay if you want the slightly better optimiser in the commercial variant which also allows bigger binaries, however the gnu MSP430 compiler has no limits, is fully supported by the TI IDE, and is free - TI's commercial offering is the same gnu gcc/g++ compiler except that it's been optimised in association with red hat.

Nick

[Nick]

The launchpads are excellent/astonishing value.

Have a look at the MSP-EXP430FR5969 which is the one I mostly use. Phenomenal board for a stupidly low price.

Nick

[Mich...@aol.com]

John,

 

I purchase 5 of these.   MSP-EXP430G2

They were like $4.30

 

Like most projects, I never used them.  One here and open while the rest are stored somewhere in the garage.  Mine are 14 pin.

 

Michail Wilson
206-920-6312

[John Rehwinkel]

>> I was always an AVR man, then I discovered the MSP430 series... :)
>
> Interesting. I plugged MPS430 into mouser and what came up is a large
> 100 pin chip that is fairly expensive. Are there smaller versions in
> the series? I guess I have a lot of reading to do.

Oh my, yes. There are some really nice ones in 14- and 20-pin DIP packages, and there are some very affordable "launchpad" demo boards for them.

I designed in an MSP430FR5969 in a recent project, due to its amazingly low power consumption and plenty of I/O (I needed a bunch of ADC pins,
two UARTs, SPI, etc.).

> I'm in a quandary. In upcoming products, I need more power than the
> AVRs can provide. I feel like I should be on the ARM bandwagon but I
> have no idea where to start.

Look at some of the PJRC offerings, the Teensy LC is only $12 and pretty powerful.

> This TI chip looks interesting but it
> chaps me to have to pay for dev tools.

TI offers a free IDE that runs on Linux, and there's Energia, which is an Arduino port to the MSP430 (and related) chips, also free and it's multiplatform.

> Yeah, I know the GNU chain is
> free but sometimes one just has to have a source code debugger.

True. I haven't played with TI's IDE, but I expect it has a source code debugger. Energia, however, doesn't offer that kind of functionality.

- John

[John Rehwinkel]

> I still haven't found how to integrate the CPU into a user project without the board, while retaining the easy reprogramming. The LaunchPad boards have TWO ARM CPUs on them.

True, one of the CPUs implements their "FET" device programmer.

I actually have integrated one of their CPUs into a project. Most of their offerings support two separate programming models. One is a fairly straightforward JTAG variant,
the other is their "'Spy-BiWire" (SBW) protocol, which only takes two I/O pins. You can use the launchpad board as a programmer (the signals come across a series of jumpers,
where you can pick them off and use them, I've done it, it works fine). There's also an outboard programmer, which I'm using now; it has a USB interface to the host computer,
and a 14-pin cable to the device. It supports both the JTAG and SBW style programming methods, my board uses SBW.

They've made the code that speaks to the programmers available too, which is important to me.

- John

[NeonJohn]

Ahhh, OK. Thanks. Sheds a much different light on things.

John

[Terry S]

Ahhh HA! Good to know I'm not the only one who dealt with that PIC problem. Worked with the Microchip FAEs for months on it. I finally got them to admit there was a bug in the circuit.... prompted a revision on their part and a work-around on mine. It was intolerant of a non-monotonic or too slow power up voltage waveform I believe. I had dozens of field returned boards....

Terry

[Charles MacDonald]

On 16-01-27 11:06 AM, NeonJohn wrote:
>
>
> On 01/27/2016 09:22 AM, Nick wrote:
>> +1 on hating the PIC "architecture".
>>
>> I was always an AVR man, then I discovered the MSP430 series... :)
>
> Interesting. I plugged MPS430 into mouser and what came up is a large
> 100 pin chip that is fairly expensive. Are there smaller versions in
> the series? I guess I have a lot of reading to do.


> I'm in a quandary. In upcoming products, I need more power than the
> AVRs can provide. I feel like I should be on the ARM bandwagon but I
> have no idea where to start. This TI chip looks interesting but it
> chaps me to have to pay for dev tools. Yeah, I know the GNU chain is
> free but sometimes one just has to have a source code debugger.

At the Last Ottawa Linux Symposium, Jon Hall mentioned that he is now
working for http://www.linaro.org/

They seem to be the folks that work on the tool chains and migration
paterns for the Whole ARM line. It is a but unusual as ARM designs the
chips but licences the design to several other firms to make them, and
the spread is between small chips for low power, and bigger ones that
take on low level x86 style tasks.

I only remember the highlights of Jon's talk.


--
Charles MacDonald Stittsville Ontario
cm...@zeusprune.ca Just Beyond the Fringe
No Microsoft Products were used in sending this e-mail.

[NeonJohn]

Just a note to thank you guys for turning me on to the MPS430 series. I
spent yesterday reading. I ordered a Launchpad and am headed to the
library in a few (my Hughsnet can't stand the strain this month :-( to
download all the tools. I'm really lovin' it that the IDE runs on Linux
too, since we're an all-Linux shop.

This chip series and some of the support libraries are going to allow me
to remarkably simplify the product I've been working on.

Again, thanks
John

On 01/28/2016 09:21 PM, Charles MacDonald wrote:
> On 16-01-27 11:06 AM, NeonJohn wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 01/27/2016 09:22 AM, Nick wrote:
>>> +1 on hating the PIC "architecture".
>>>
>>> I was always an AVR man, then I discovered the MSP430 series... :)

[gregebert]

On Friday, January 29, 2016 at 8:01:59 AM UTC-8, NeonJohn wrote:

Just a note to thank you guys for turning me on to the MPS430 series. 

Hopefully you will have better luck than I had with my original attempt to use the  Ti Launchpad about 2 years ago.

I found that the USB communication was flaky with Windoze7, and did not work at all with Ubuntu. That bummed me out because I thought the '430 was THE answer to all my projects.

If you have success w/ Linux (preferably a debian-based variant), please post your findings. Thanks.

[Terry S]

I have one of the TI Chronos 430 watch dev kits, got it at a trade show. Never tried it out. Maybe I played with it at the conference.

Anyone want it? You can have it for shipping.

Terry

[Dylan Distasio]

I would be interested if noone else has claimed it.  

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[Robert B. Saltzman]

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[Robert B. Saltzman]

I am interested, (if it is functional).

----- Original Message -----

From: 'Terry S' via neonixie-l

To: neonixie-l

Sent: Friday, January 29, 2016 2:38 PM

Subject: Re: [neonixie-l] Microchip finally buys Atmel

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[Terry S]

William, PM me. I'm sure it's going to need a battery by now. Other than that, it should be OK.

Terry