Sonsivri

I need to develop a custom HID keyboard, and would like to get some recommendations on what microcontroller/controller could I use. My current alternatives are ATMEGA8 + Objective USB firmware and PIC18F2550 + CCS firmware, do you know of other cheap alternatives? Thanks in advance for your comments.

Freescale makes some 68hc908 micros with a keyboard interface on board, but you'd have to add something for the USB connectivity. It's been a while since I've looked, but I think they even offer free code + an app note on how to implement a (I assume you mean a PC keyboard) keyboard Interface.

Yes, I mean PC keyboard. Thanks for the info about Freescale, I'll take a look at these micros.

the best choice for me is LPC1342 or LPC1751

hello,
u can use cypress semiconductors,they have got some psoc in built with usb devices,u can customize the hardware graphically.they provide good appnote also,as u said for keyboard  they have got some app notes also.for ex:- cy8c24894,cy8c24xxx,old versions dedicated to usb are cy7cxxxx,they have some wireless usb ics also.u can have vast number of choices in cypress

Hi

I recommend STM32 very good documented and easy to use if you know "c" language (from some one who done USB for the first time)

P.S don't forget to remove "if def's" since the code designed for several controllers

All the best

Bobi   

Thanks for all of your comments, there are several options I wasn't aware of, and they seem really good, I'll try to check them all, thanks :).

I you want to use 8051 core you can try Silicon Labs USB controllers.

Texas 8051 with usb
http://focus.ti.com/mcu/docs/mcugeneralcontent.tsp?sectionId=98&tabId=1515
http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/tusb3410.html

Hi,
Back after so long.
Anyway, for USB, I'd recommend the 18F2550 over the ATMEGA8 as it has a USB module in it. If you use PIC, go for it. If you use AVR, check the AT90USBxx or ATMEGA16U4. There are a few 8051 with USB. Check that as well.

Thanks again, I'm currently working with a PIC18F2550, they were the easier to get in my region.
What I'm trying now is to gather information of what is needed in order to release an USB product, I've read about some vendors giving you right to use their ID for free but limiting to small quantities, do I really need specific vendor and product IDs, or just product ID? If I'm not selling this product alone but using it in a bigger one, do I need to have get custom IDs? What happens if I don't exceed certain amount of products?

Does anybody know where could I find information about these topics?

About PID and VID. Yes you shall have yours and yes you may get your own PID from the silicon vendor.
If you go without, you risk driver problems with the PC, and I can tell you that they do happen.
Not all the companies follow the same policy. Texas and Silabs do give you a possibility in that sense.
NXP does not!
I do not know the policy of Microchip.
It is not quantity limited, from what  I understand you can make as many products you want. The problem is they will not give you so many different PIDs to use with their VID, so you cannot differentiate among your products.

Can be cheaper the 18F13K50 of 20 pin.

Thanks for the suggestion, but it doesn't match current I/O requirements for the design.

I've just been contacted by a Renesas sales representative, I explained the requirements for this project and he will send me information about some of their microcontrollers that would fit.
But in the meantime, does anybody know of a Renesas microcontroller that would have similar features to a Microchip PIC18F2550? I know they have lots of bigger chips, but I haven't used Renesas devices before and so I'm not really aware of their product lines.

Cypress CY7C68013A EZ-USB FX2LP USB2.0 Develope Board
Ebay Item number: 280535311982

$26 US Dollars (I don't know how they make them that cheap!)

I bought two of these and they are beautiful. He sends a link to software, PDF files and such.
I don't know how far along you are on your project, but I thought this may help. They are about
1/2 the price of other boards I've seen. It took me about 2 weeks to get them. The controller is
an expanded 8051 core, and you just download code to it through USB. Pretty neat. Now it's on my
list of things to do (sometime.)

I did this several years ago using a PIC There is sample code in the CCS forum library. Now I needed more flexibility at the PC end.
Microchip has a free USB driver you can download. It will interface with C## vb delphi and my favorite lazarus .
Lazarus is free. Lazarus  is like delphi pascal and runs windows linux and MAC os also cross compiles to win mobile  WinCE and Iphone os.
Write it once with lazarus and it will run across platforms.
For USB and the PIC. You install the Microchip Windows driver ( use libusb for linux) use the free  PID and VID that Microchip gives you in your PIC code. A few lines of PC code and you are in total control of the USB interfaces end points and  data transfer modes. The PC is the master and the PIC usb enabled device is the slave. Newer PIC devices have OTG ( On the Go) so the PIC can act in a limited manner as a master. The key with usb is a stable 32mhz clock PIC devices allow  dual clocks a PIC system clock and a stable usb clock derived from one external xtal source. Your PIC internals timers ADC 1 wire X10 I2C Rs232 etc aren't held hostage to the 32mhz usb heart beat

I understand that most people on this site are PIC-oriented and quite a few are AVR oriented, but I would suggest to everybody to seriously consider cortex ARM architectures. They are cheap, very rich in peripherals and very powerful. The usb interface examples are very complete. I am using at the moment the stm32 series and really I wonder how I ever did without, NXP has very good devices and Texas-luminary are quite good expecially in their firmware examples. If anybody is in the process of starting a new design I really suggest to consider a switch to some of these devices. It is true that you can do USB with smaller devices, but why do it? If you need usb that -quite often- means that you also generally need high performance in terms of speed and memory intensive tasks, which you cannot achieve with "small" devices.

I think the thing that makes PIC and Arduino(ATMEL) processors so attractive is that there is:
A. a large number of forums and large number of perople that follow them
B. most of the popular PIC and Arduino processors have projects that are open/GPL'd and there fore shared
   freely amoung many users. A good example of this is all the files on the SPARKFUN site to name just one.
C. finally, there are many many libraries for EAGLE CAD which I for one love that support these two families of processors.

Interestingly enough there are several families of processors and logic out there that are not supoorted by the expirimenter community for some reason (maybe cost) that are extremely versitile and I for one would love to see some projects developed for these processors that are put out under the GPL license for all to enjoy.

 

I have no experience with it but I'd consider the MSP430F5529. It has USB controller embedded and they claim it's low power.
See more here:
http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/msp430f5529.html