Cypress Adds New Programmable Peripherals for PSoC® 3 and PSoC 5 Architectures with Latest Release of PSoC Creator™ Design Environment

PSoC Creator combines a state-of-the-art software development IDE with a revolutionary graphical design editor to form a uniquely powerful hardware/software co-design environment. It provides a rich library of dozens of pre-configured analog and digital peripherals that can easily be dropped into the schematic design canvas and combined into powerful systems. The tool automatically places components into the PSoC device, routes all on-chip signals and directs I/O to the optimum pins. Each peripheral component is carefully parameterized so that the implementation is automatically optimized to fit the developer’s needs perfectly with no wasted resources. The build process generates a consistent, easily remembered set of APIs for each component that allows the software developer to control the hardware without worrying about the underlying implementation. Customized designs, and their associated APIs, can even be saved in a library for future reuse and easily shared within an organization.

The latest version of PSoC Creator improves support for very low power designs with per-component control over sleep and hibernate behavior, allowing designers to selectively reduce power to certain parts of the chip without having to impact performance. It also introduces two powerful new LCD graphics components; one that communicates with the LCD panel via the popular i8080 interface and another that controls the panel directly, driving the control signals and managing the frame buffer in an external SRAM. In addition, PSoC Creator adds Cypress’s unique SmartSense™ algorithm to provide on-the-fly calibration of CapSense® applications, resulting in end-products that are easier to manufacture and perform better.

Cypress also offers fully functional, free compilers with no code size limitations for both the PSoC 3 and PSoC 5 device families. The Keil™ PK51 Professional Developer’s Kit for PSoC 3 and the CodeSourcery™ Sourcery G++™ Lite Edition for PSoC 5 are both bundled with the PSoC Creator distribution. PSoC Creator also includes a built-in debugger to support the on-chip JTAG and serial wire debug functionality provided in all PSoC 3 and PSoC 5 devices. Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS) supported include Keil™ RTX51 Tiny, Micrium µC/OS-III™, and SEGGER embOS.

“Our customers tell us every day that PSoC Creator represents the future of embedded design,” said Gahan Richardson, vice president of PSoC Products for Cypress. “These features make designing easier and more powerful for engineers, and we’re actively developing a steady stream of new components and enhancements to PSoC Creator that reduce our customers’ time-to-market.”

About PSoC Creator
PSoC Creator is a unique design software enables engineers to design the way they think, using schematic-based design capture along with certified, pre-packaged peripherals to keep system creation independent of the target PSoC device. Instead of trawling through device documentation and memorizing register maps, users simply lay out the design, just as they would on paper or a whiteboard, and let the tool translate it into the PSoC configuration. With PSoC Creator, customers create designs according to application requirements, not the limitations of the target device. Re-targeting to new devices is as simple as rebuilding an application, so porting designs between PSoC devices becomes a snap, including migrating working designs seamlessly from 8- to 32-bit devices.

PSoC -- Because Change Happens
PSoC devices employ a highly configurable system-on-chip architecture for embedded control design, offering a flash-based equivalent of a field-programmable ASIC without lead-time or NRE penalties. PSoC devices integrate configurable analog and digital circuits, controlled by an on-chip microcontroller, providing both enhanced design revision capability and component count savings. A single PSoC device can integrate as many as 100 peripheral functions saving customers design time, board space and power consumption while improving system quality and reducing system cost.

The flexible PSoC resources allow designers to future-proof their products by enabling firmware-based changes during design, validation, production, and in the field. The unique PSoC flexibility shortens design cycle time and allows for late-breaking feature enhancements. All PSoC devices are also dynamically reconfigurable, enabling designers to morph internal resources on-the-fly, utilizing fewer components to perform a given task. More information about PSoC products is available at www.cypress.com/psoc and free online training is at www.cypress.com/psoctraining.