News & Analysis
Cypress unveils PSoC 4 for ARM Cortex-M0
Toni McConnel
3/21/2013 3:37 PM EDT
The PSoC 4 programmable system-on-chip architecture from Cypress Semiconductor Corp. combines Cypress's PSoC analog and digital fabric and CapSense capacitive touch technology with ARM's power-efficient Cortex-M0 core. The scalable architecture delivers access to dozens of free PSoC Components ("virtual chips") represented by icons in Cypress's PSoC Creator integrated design environment. The new PSoC 4 device class will challenge proprietary 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers (MCUs), along with other 32-bit devices.
The PSoC 4 architecture enhances Cypress's CapSense capacitive-touch sensing technology by offering significant improvement in noise immunity. In addition to capacitive sensing, PSoC 4 targets field-oriented control (FOC) motor control, temperature sensing, security access, portable medical, and many other applications.
Click to read the rest of this article on Embedded.com.
The PSoC 4 architecture enhances Cypress's CapSense capacitive-touch sensing technology by offering significant improvement in noise immunity. In addition to capacitive sensing, PSoC 4 targets field-oriented control (FOC) motor control, temperature sensing, security access, portable medical, and many other applications.
Click to read the rest of this article on Embedded.com.
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jg_
3/22/2013 3:54 PM EDT
Fairchild have just released a dual-core FOC microcontroller for under $2/100's (Mouser & Avnet).
Cypress PSoCs tend to generate sticker-shock, will the PSoC4 be any better ?
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JWW_Cypress
3/22/2013 6:26 PM EDT
The PSoC 4 architecture provides the MCU + PLD + Analog Fabric at a fraction of historical pricing. The product family was designed from day one to take on the 8/16 bit replacement market and to bridge to 32 bit ARM. The integration allows you to do some really impressive solutions like FOC based motor control, but at a much more reasonable price point. I think you will find our first PSoC 4 products can easily handle this market and be quite price competitive... More to come very soon. Thanks for your interest and question.
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przemek
3/26/2013 10:52 AM EDT
So Cypress had old 8-bit PSOC3 and new 32-bit ARM PSOC5. Seems confusing that they created PSOC4 for low-end ARM. What is the fundamental difference between 5 and 4? I suspect it's a marketing 'wolf whistle' saying 'the prices are lower'.
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JWW_Cypress
3/27/2013 4:17 AM EDT
The PSoC 5LP family announced in December of 2012, did launch with improved pricing over previous generation PSoC 5 products. PSoC 3 has an 8-bit core (8051 based), but it is closer in system performance to a PSoC 5LP product with the same analog and digital performance in many cases. The PSoC 4 architecture delivers better core performance as expected from a Cortex-M0 over an 8051 and the chip architecture is significantly different from previous product generations. The first members of the PSoC 4 family will be well suited to reducing system cost through programmable hardware integration, while maintaining the ease-of-use that is expected for 8/16 bit applications.
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przemek
4/1/2013 1:00 PM EDT
I forgot about 5LP... so it's four product lines...
If as you say PSOC 3 has similar performance as 5LP with similar analog capabiliites, and PSOC4 is better, it seems to me that you're implying Cypress is phasing out PSOC3?
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