AVR Chips

From Wiki

Jump to: navigation, search


Atmel makes a great line of 8-bit RISC based microcontrollers. I've made a bunch of home projects with them, and I like them over other microcontrollers because:

  • They're cheap. You can get one for about $2 from http://digikey.com Faster bigger chips are a bit more, but all are <$20.
  • They're small, and come in both SMT and DIP versions. This makes prototyping easy. Chips come with as few as 8 pins.
  • All the development tools, like avr-gcc, are open-source and run under Linux.
  • They're pretty fast. A $2 chip that runs at 10Mhz is pretty kick-ass.
  • They have both volatile (EEPROM) and non-volatile (flash) built right in. No need to add extra parts to store your program. No carrier boards.
  • There's lots of source code (asm, C, and BASIC), and support floating around on the internet (like this page!)
  • The development boards, like the STK500 are inexpensive at <$100. Other boards are even cheaper, like the AVR Butterfly.
  • A wide range of product offerings, from 8 to 40 GPIO pins.
  • Many chips have built-in ADC.
  • Many chips have built-in real-time clock support. (Huh? As in, bring your own 32.768 crystal?)
  • Direct driving of LEDs from output pins.
[edit]

specific AVR chips

OK, this has convinced me to use an Atmel AVR rather than some other chip ... but which Atmel AVR?

If you are just starting out, the ATMega32 is the best. See Getting Started and Your First AVR Order.


If you have an interesting reason to use some other Atmel AVR chip, please comment here.

  • The 8-pin ATtiny chips are cute. But what kind of application is so size sensitive that the tiny size makes any difference, and outweighs the difficulty in debugging? Perhaps a small rocket computer in a rocket too narrow to hold the 0.6 inch wide ATMega32 ? But the ATMEGA168 (28-DIP) and ATTINY84 (14-DIP) are just as narrow as the 8-pin chips.
  • The "ATXMEGA256" has far more flash than the ATMega32 ... alas, it doesn't seem to come in a DIP package. Are they available yet?
  • FPSLIC (AVR with FPGA) looks like it can do many things much faster than any other microcontroller ...
  • The "ATmega256RZBV" includes an Atmel AVR MCU and also a Zigbee-capable radio in the same package ...
  • The "ATMEGA3290P" and "ATMEGA329P" claim to have LCD drivers -- but where can I buy a compatible LCD panel?
  • The "ATmega32U4" claims to have USB -- alas, it doesn't seem to come in a DIP package. Is it available yet?
Retrieved from "http://avrwiki.com/wiki/index.php/AVR_Chips"
Personal tools