Hey, microchip bought ATMEL ....

[metal]

I am not trying to convince you with anything :- )

[Old_but_Alive]

as a slight aside.

I am a confirmed Microchip  PIC addict of many many years.

I think they are falling behind in the amount of RAM and Interrupt  pins available.

I am getting into ATMEL SAM D10 and D20, and they are nice products.

If Microchip bought ATMEL for its ARM capabilites ( + its IoT ),then its a wise move

looking at MCHP's previous takeover, they seem to act very wisely and softly, and so for me, its a win-win for us all

[witsanukai]

Hope Microchip use same supplier for Atmel, in my country (Thailand) very easy for looking for Michrochip in every models.But AVR we can buy only favorite model (Atmega8,16,32,64) but for Mega32U4, Mega2560 or ATxMega128 cannot, unless by from oversea Vendor and pay for shipping cost

[Old_but_Alive]

as a slight aside.

I have always found Microchip micro's to be very robust.

On the other hand, it seems easy to zap Atmel micros

anyone else had this experience ?

[gan_canny]

I agree PIC micros are hard to kill. With other MCU's all it takes is a stray voltage spike. I have had PIC  thin square packages soldered in the wrong orientation and simply desoldering them and reinstalling them got them to work. It is hard to find something as robust as a PIC.

[bigtoy]

as a slight aside.

I have always found Microchip micro's to be very robust.

On the other hand, it seems easy to zap Atmel micros

anyone else had this experience ?

Agreed. I know of a local company who used microchip parts for years. Then they switched to MSP430 because of their lower cost. They quickly had problems with parts being ESD damaged. The theory (aside from the obvious sloppy handling) was that the 5V microchip parts were made using an older larger silicon geometry which was inherently more robust. Whereas the finer geometry newer (and smaller & cheaper) 3.3V - 1.8V MSP430 parts were just a bit more susceptible. That was their theory anyway. They improved their handling practices and the problem went away.

[hate]

That is such bad news. Atmel used to maintain the AVR-GCC compiler for AVRs and it was a cutting edge compiler as they didn't offer any commercial version to cripple the free version. On the other hand Microchip never offered any completely free compiler for any of their up-to-date chips. Now I'm pretty sure avr-gcc users will have to say goodbye to avr-gcc and be forced to buy a optimized gcc (yes gcc) compiler or similar if they don't opt for the community maintained one. Such a disaster...

[EHHS1979]

Could this lead to PIC processors being embedded in FPGAs in the future?

[metal]

why is that :S

[LithiumOverdosE]

I don't think that's accurate.  I use the code configuration all the time. and when it doesn't do what I want, I simply use normal libraries, and when that doesn't work or is too slow, I go lower and lower down to the register level.  I'm not sure what case you are talking about where you don't have access to something.

This might be stupid, but you know you have to install the peripheral libraries separately from the compiler now right?  That hung me up a few times when the first separated the packages.

Sure, I have peripheral libs installed separately with no issues whatsoever. However, I suspect that MCHP may be reluctant to further continue development and expansion of the peripheral libs and will force Code Configurator, While I find that tool useful, I find it unnerving that I cannot modify the source code nor take a peek at it as a guideline. So, if this continues and with new parts coming out, peripheral libraries with sources available will become obsolete and we'll be stuck with Code Configurator, which incidentally brings XC8 on pair with MikroC.

[PICker]

I have wide experience with PICs and I confirm, the MCU are robust, apparently ESD insensitive (in particular ADC and comparators maintain their characteristics over time in noise environments), and reprogrammable an "infinite number of times". I've used also AVRs and MSP430s for some projects but I do not have enough experience.
I think that from the quality point of view Arizona Microchip is synonymous of consistency.

[myheadhurts]

I will not use chips from a single supplier** . I once spent 6months designing and perfecting a design based on a Triscend mixed 8051 cpu+cpld chip , only to have them go bust just before we were due to start manufacturing.

** Except for Microchip. I like Microchip lots.. a great range...they have sold 12 billion mcus and are the only non Arm game in town imho. Atmel were a tiny 8051 vendor and their Avr sales , even when accounting for the beginner arduino concept and popularity , do not compare to Microchip.

Arm Rules .

[PICker]

I agree with you @myheadhurts, and I use your method too. Microchip range of 8-16-32 MCU is amazing. Recently, the introduction of integrated analog peripherials (OPAs, Comparators, ADC and DAC) inside a single MCU package made the design very easy for specialized analog/digital hybrid applications.
Another very important ferature of a Brand is the developing tools echosystem (stratified from beginner to professional terget) and the supporting community of developers.
I hope the same approach will be transferred to AVR cores for extending the development options.