Choosing a microcontroller together
After reading this article, I noticed a great interest in choosing a microcontroller from readers and decided to look at this problem from the other side.
I can assume that everyone is interested in the choice of their first , or the first 32-bit MK.
For those who know that there is not a single microcontroller in the photo - I ask in the commentary to add my story and thus share my experience with beginners. The rest, certainly under the cat!
In my opinion, the simpler each stage of learning will be - the easier it will be to reach independent swimming. Therefore, I believe that at the initial stage everything should be taken ready. Do not invent anything yourself. Imagine:
you chose a controller
overlooked the datasheet
made a fee under it
or found it on the Internet,
bought all the components (or if there were no analogs),
soldered everything
wrote the first "hello world",
assembled the programmer, asked the controller
And ... and nothing happens! Something does not work, and you cannot understand what: either there is an error in the soldering, or something with the program, or there is a curved scheme on the Internet, or there are problems with the software.
')
Novice such a situation baffled, I know it on my own.
To prevent this from happening, the easiest way is to take the first steps under someone else’s guidance.
The advantage of a simple start perfectly shows the Arduino platform. Judge for yourself: the capabilities of the controllers are far from great, the prices of the boards are huge, but there is a huge support from the community and everything is ready, any expansion cards, heaps of examples.
Due to this, the platform lives!
Let's see what choice we have at all! On the market a huge number of manufacturers and architectures. But the choice is really not great at all :
I would immediately cut off all 8-bit and 16-bit architectures, except PIC and AVR, and sometimes manufacturers offer debug boards and controllers at a very attractive price.
but I do not advise taking them because these are uncommon architectures and there are fewer examples for them + it will be more difficult to change to other controllers.
For the same reason, all 32-bit architectures except ARM + are cut off, problems with examples still begin with them, and they are gradually dying out.
Arm microcontrollers are divided into ARM7, ARM9, Cortex M0, 3, 4.
The seventh and ninths are gradually being replaced by cortex, and soon they will not be either.
Total we have:
AVR
Pic
ARM Cortex
I can’t say a lot about the peaks, but in my opinion the AVR displaces them due to the prevalence of Arduino.
But I still advised Cortex, their possibilities are much wider, besides there is a choice between manufacturers, and this, in my opinion, is a big plus. And there are a lot of libraries that simplify life and even code generators that will allow beginners to not read the user manual much to write the first program.
So which manufacturers are represented by us?
NXP, ST, Freescale, TI, Luminary Micro, Atmel and many others but less common.
How to choose from so many manufacturers?
you must choose not a controller, but a debug board, libraries, development environment and community.
He himself felt only NXP, ST and Freescale.
The first 2 manufacturers flooded Moscow and other cities of Russia with cheap / free debugs - this is very good in the sense that there is always someone to ask, who to contact.
Also, no programmers are needed - everything is on board!
For NXP there is an alternative from Olimex www.chipdip.ru/product/lpc-p1343.aspx
There are also disadvantages: when you want to expand their opportunities, you will have to look for a new one.
Most of all I liked the patching from Freescale, which I encountered at work.
In my opinion, this is the best option for a newbie, but she has one huge minus:
it is still quite difficult to find on sale and the regions will have to order, but it's worth it:
The first and most important advantage: standard expansion cards (first buy a standard set, then re-buy Wi-Fi, sensors, etc.)
Another big plus is the development environment: thanks to Processor Expert, you can generate code, and lots of examples with explanations.
So let's summarize:
1 to buy Arduino Uno with AVR for 1000r on the board is almost nothing, but in the sale of many expansion cards and a huge community
2 to buy STM32L-DISCOVERY with M3 for 16.22 dollars with touch buttons, USB and a small LCD display and debager on board
3 buy for 1000r LPCEXPRESSO c M3 with just pulled out contacts and debager on board
4 buy KWIKSTICK with M4 for 30dol + delivery with a large segment LCD, USB, headphone input, speaker, touch buttons, lithium battery, microphone, IR port, SD card slot + ability to expand functionality without soldering and large investments. A large set of libraries, examples and a good IDE.
In the end, I believe that you need to buy STM32L-DISCOVERY and start with it,
or if you are not too lazy to bother with the order of the board and pay a little more to take KWIKSTICK - it will be easier to start with, and it will last longer, but you need English to communicate with colleagues.
I ask everyone familiar with the MK to write my choice of debugging tools for a newbie, I will gladly add an article
UPD: stm32l-discovery at such prices you can buy in Kompela
Kwikstick on freescale
I can assume that everyone is interested in the choice of their first , or the first 32-bit MK.
For those who know that there is not a single microcontroller in the photo - I ask in the commentary to add my story and thus share my experience with beginners. The rest, certainly under the cat!
In my opinion, the simpler each stage of learning will be - the easier it will be to reach independent swimming. Therefore, I believe that at the initial stage everything should be taken ready. Do not invent anything yourself. Imagine:
you chose a controller
overlooked the datasheet
made a fee under it
or found it on the Internet,
bought all the components (or if there were no analogs),
soldered everything
wrote the first "hello world",
assembled the programmer, asked the controller
And ... and nothing happens! Something does not work, and you cannot understand what: either there is an error in the soldering, or something with the program, or there is a curved scheme on the Internet, or there are problems with the software.
')
Novice such a situation baffled, I know it on my own.
To prevent this from happening, the easiest way is to take the first steps under someone else’s guidance.
The advantage of a simple start perfectly shows the Arduino platform. Judge for yourself: the capabilities of the controllers are far from great, the prices of the boards are huge, but there is a huge support from the community and everything is ready, any expansion cards, heaps of examples.
Due to this, the platform lives!
Let's see what choice we have at all! On the market a huge number of manufacturers and architectures. But the choice is really not great at all :
I would immediately cut off all 8-bit and 16-bit architectures, except PIC and AVR, and sometimes manufacturers offer debug boards and controllers at a very attractive price.
but I do not advise taking them because these are uncommon architectures and there are fewer examples for them + it will be more difficult to change to other controllers.
For the same reason, all 32-bit architectures except ARM + are cut off, problems with examples still begin with them, and they are gradually dying out.
Arm microcontrollers are divided into ARM7, ARM9, Cortex M0, 3, 4.
The seventh and ninths are gradually being replaced by cortex, and soon they will not be either.
Total we have:
AVR
Pic
ARM Cortex
I can’t say a lot about the peaks, but in my opinion the AVR displaces them due to the prevalence of Arduino.
But I still advised Cortex, their possibilities are much wider, besides there is a choice between manufacturers, and this, in my opinion, is a big plus. And there are a lot of libraries that simplify life and even code generators that will allow beginners to not read the user manual much to write the first program.
So which manufacturers are represented by us?
NXP, ST, Freescale, TI, Luminary Micro, Atmel and many others but less common.
How to choose from so many manufacturers?
you must choose not a controller, but a debug board, libraries, development environment and community.
He himself felt only NXP, ST and Freescale.
The first 2 manufacturers flooded Moscow and other cities of Russia with cheap / free debugs - this is very good in the sense that there is always someone to ask, who to contact.
Also, no programmers are needed - everything is on board!
For NXP there is an alternative from Olimex www.chipdip.ru/product/lpc-p1343.aspx
There are also disadvantages: when you want to expand their opportunities, you will have to look for a new one.
Most of all I liked the patching from Freescale, which I encountered at work.
In my opinion, this is the best option for a newbie, but she has one huge minus:
it is still quite difficult to find on sale and the regions will have to order, but it's worth it:
The first and most important advantage: standard expansion cards (first buy a standard set, then re-buy Wi-Fi, sensors, etc.)
Another big plus is the development environment: thanks to Processor Expert, you can generate code, and lots of examples with explanations.
So let's summarize:
1 to buy Arduino Uno with AVR for 1000r on the board is almost nothing, but in the sale of many expansion cards and a huge community
2 to buy STM32L-DISCOVERY with M3 for 16.22 dollars with touch buttons, USB and a small LCD display and debager on board
3 buy for 1000r LPCEXPRESSO c M3 with just pulled out contacts and debager on board
4 buy KWIKSTICK with M4 for 30dol + delivery with a large segment LCD, USB, headphone input, speaker, touch buttons, lithium battery, microphone, IR port, SD card slot + ability to expand functionality without soldering and large investments. A large set of libraries, examples and a good IDE.
In the end, I believe that you need to buy STM32L-DISCOVERY and start with it,
or if you are not too lazy to bother with the order of the board and pay a little more to take KWIKSTICK - it will be easier to start with, and it will last longer, but you need English to communicate with colleagues.
I ask everyone familiar with the MK to write my choice of debugging tools for a newbie, I will gladly add an article
UPD: stm32l-discovery at such prices you can buy in Kompela
Kwikstick on freescale
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/122030/
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