What chips to buy?

[DavidS]

I'm about to buy the recommended AVR dev kit, and I thought it would be a good idea to buy some actual chips along with it.

So, Mr. Peter Snowberg, I know you have something in the works using an MCU with a Wavefront dsp, what chip are you using for that project?

And what is the standard chip we'll be using around here? What should I stock up on?

Thanks!

[Peter Snowberg]

There has been talk about articles based around the ATtiny13 as a starting point. That's an 8 pin chip with 6 I/O lines and built-in A/D converter. A very cool chip indeed!

I like the ATmega series because I use JTAG and I don't have hardware that operates their new "debugwire" system. I also use the STK501 add-on to the STK500 which gives you a ZIF socket and JTAG connector for playing with the ATmega128.

They all use the same code so I would pick up a handful of ATtiny13s to get going.

I don't have a final chip selected for my DSP stuff, but I use the mega128 for hacking. I'll choose a much smaller chip for the final.

They'll include a couple of other chips with the kit.

[The Tone God]

And what is the standard chip we'll be using around here? What should I stock up on?

I belive the Tiny13 will be the standard small uC. Its an 8-pin DIP that is cheap and with lots of features. You will probably out grow the 6 pin feature limitation before you out grow the uC's ability. If you do out grow the power there are other more powerful 8-pin uC that you can use.

Unfortunatly at the moment the next step in physical size from 8-pin is 20-pin in the AVR world. There is a new 14-pin line coming out soon that will be availible in DIP format (originally it was only going to be surface mount) coming out probably later this year. Until then we are stuck with the 20-pin as our next size. Atmel is also expanding the 20-pin line later this year as well but until then probably the best 20-pin IC is the Tiny26. Up from that I would probably say something from the 28-pin Mega line like the Mega8.

So I would say grab a bunch of Tiny13s and maybe a couple Tiny26s if you plan to go slightly bigger. The STK500 also comes with a a pair of 40-pin uC. I belive a AT90 and ATMega something.

Not to start another langauge war but one of the nice things about use a higher level langauge, like C, is that you can move code from different processors quite easily.

Andrew