25 octobre 2009

ATxmega




I received the new processor that may well be the basis of the next version of RCHome. It is an atXmega192A3. This processor looks very interesting for a radio transmitter because it has:
* 16 Kbyte SRAM, which gives more spaces for the core of the software,
* ADC 12bits (Analog to Digital) converter: for a best accuracy of stick inputs
* tqfp 64 package, is "smt" technology, but should be still reasonable to solder,
* has hardware support for quadratic encoders,
* many IO pins (switch, several rotary encoder, lcd, etc...)
* several timers
* 32 Mhz clock

But it has some drawbacks also:
* can't be programmed with ISP, need PDI and there is still no low cost PDI programmer
* programmatic interface a bit different from Atmega AVR
* requires most recent version of avr-gcc tools
* has still few concrete examples on how to use

Here is the adaptor board for the stk600, I should receive the stk600 soon.