Michael Karas wrote:
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Mikkel:
What appears to be unmanageable packaging problem by you has not been a issue for me and many others.

I can manage the SMD packages, but I like to be able to re-use expensive parts in other prototypes - which is why I like sockets.

The programming of parts is handled via a JTAG download.

I guess you do it using the software available on Cygnals webpage? But the problem for me is that they only offer Windows software. I don't have any versions of Windows available (except perhaps a copy of 3.0 somewhere). I do development work on DOS, OS/2 and various versions of Unix. So I would have to implement it myself.

And it does not take a couple of years to implement it (or were you joking?).

I wasn't completely joking. It may not take years, but it would probably take me longer to do than the rest of the project. Is there any Linux/Unix source code available anywhere? - that would make it easier...

And as for price.... Some parts are more expensive yes but feature for feature and MIPS per MIPS they are comparable to the competition in quantity purchases.

I'm not saying they are too expensive when you take all the features into account. But when you don't need the features they do get expensive. The high quantity cost of the Cygnal chips is quite a bit higher than the cost of the Winbond chips BTW (if only I could get them... ;-).

The cost of single chips for development is nearly irrelevant compared to the labor costs of building an application program!!

Agreed. But the cost of the chips used in the final application is not irrelevant.

And to top all that off the Cygnal onboard debug hardware support, in every chip including your in field target product, goes a long way toward reducing labor costs over the total life cycle of the product.

When my delelopment tools don't support the debug hardware, they are not a big advantage to me. De-bugging over the UART or an LCD works fine for me.

PS.
I gave Cygnal to you as a suggestion.........not to feel as if I have to defend it.

I know. And I do think the Cygnal chips are interesting. But untill I have an application that needs the "extras" I think there are better options available. Harder to get options unfortunately...

Best regards,

Mikkel C. Simonsen