At the recent Embedded Systems Conference in Boston, I was given a short demonstration of the ease of use and utility of Cypress Semiconductor's recently introduced low-power, scalable PSoC® 3 and PSoC 5 (programmable system-on-chip) architectures and their graphical/schematic user interface.

The two architectures extend the design platform across 8-, 16-, and 32-bit applications, and are enabled by the PSoC Creator™ Integrated Development Environment. The latter introduces a schematic-based design capture along with analog and digital peripherals customizable through user-intuitive wizards and APIs to meet specific design requirements. According to the company, PSoC Creator enables engineers "to design the way they think." More information, including data sheets, application notes, online training, development kits, free PSoC Creator downloads and device samples, is available at www.cypress.com/go/psoc.

The programmable analog and digital peripherals in PSoC 3 and PSoC 5, along with new high performance 8-bit and 32-bit MCU sub-systems, enable new capabilities such as motor control, intelligent power supply and battery management, human interfaces such as CapSense® touch sensing, LCD segment display, graphics control, as well as audio/voice processing, communication protocols. These capabilities expand PSoC applications in industrial, medical, automotive, communications and consumer equipment markets.

The new PSoC 3 and PSoC 5 architectures include high-precision, programmable analog resources that can be configured as ADCs, DACs, TIAs, mixers, PGAs, opamps, etc. Also included are programmable-logic based digital resources that can be configured as 8-, 16-, 24-, and 32-bit timers, counters, and PWMs, as well as more advanced digital peripherals such as cyclic redundancy check (CRC), pseudo random sequence (PRS) generators, and quadrature decoders. Designers can customize this digital system through available PLD-based logic. The new architectures also support a wide range of communications interfaces, including full-speed USB, I2C, SPI, UART, CAN, LIN, and I2S.

Both architectures meet the demands of extremely low power applications by delivering a wide voltage range from 5.5 to 0.5V, along with a 200nA hibernate current. PSoC 3 and PSoC 5 are pin and API compatible, along with programmable routing, allowing any signal, whether analog or digital, to be routed to any general-purpose I/O to ease circuit board layout.

“The PSoC 3 and PSoC 5 architectures deliver a scalable platform with the computing power of high- performance MCUs, the precision of stand-alone analog devices and the flexibility of PLDs, all with a powerful, easy-to-use design environment. This combination gives designers of 8-, 16-, and 32-bit applications the flexibility and integration of true ‘system-level’ programmability for the first time,” said T.J. Rodgers, Cypress president and CEO.

PSoC 3 and PSoC 5 feature, in addition to programmable precision analog and digital subsystems, high performance CPU subsystems (8051 core (33 MIPS) and ARM Cortex-M3 core (100 MIPS), respectively), low active power (1.2mA and 2mA, respectively), programmable I/O (any pin to any analog or digital peripheral), and clocking (±1% oscillator).

Sample and design kits

Samples of the PSoC 3 devices are available, with full production expected in Q1 2010. The architecture includes three families with varying amounts of memory, digital and analog performance. Package options include 100-pin TQFPs, 48- and 68-pin QFNs, and 48-pin SSOPs. PSoC 5 samples will be available in Q1 2010 with full production in the second half of the year. The PSoC 5 architecture includes four different families

Also available are two design kits: The PSoC 3 FirstTouch™ Starter Kit (CY8CKIT-003) includes an array of sensors, I/O’s, projects, and software in addition to Serial Wire Debugging (SWD), an accelerometer, a thermistor, proximity sensing, CapSense, a 12-pin wireless module header, and 28 general purpose I/O pins. This kit is $49.00.

The PSoC Development Kit (CY8CKIT-001) offers support for the entire PSoC line, including PSoC 1, PSoC 3 and PSoC 5 devices. The kit contains a main PSoC development board, and processor module boards for the different architectures, and also includes a MiniProg3 debug and evaluation device, prototyping cable kit, a USB cable, a 12V AC power adapter, and both PSoC Creator and PSoC Designer software. Sample projects are also provided. The kit is priced at $249.00.