Microchip and OnSemi (On Semiconductor) propose to acquire Atmel. This is not a good news for the electronics designers or for the electronics operators, creating big discussions on related blog and forums. Let's analyse the facts!

The UNI/O microcontroller technology has been recently released by Microchip. It consists of a proprietary single I/O bus protocol, where the bus combines the clock and data lines into a single bit stream using the Manchester Encoding technique. Since Microchip already is one of the leading microcontroller and memory devices it is likely that the near future will see an increased use of this pin saving technology.

Usb i/o board (based on a Microchip microcontroller featuring a usb port) allows you to drive relays and read input status, easily and at a low cost (starting from 39 euro).This board is similar to a PLC (Programmable Logic Control) yet, it receives commands from a Personal Computer using USB bus. It is easy to connect using USB because when you plug the USB to the PC, a virtual RS232 port is created so you can easily develop the application software. You can use this board for domotic application, industrial automation, etc...

A ball control on a touch screen (using a Microchip microcontroller) was realized in a laboratory in Italy. A steel ball was kept at the center of a metallic plate using FLEX board at the Retis lab of Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna. You just need a steel ball, a FLEX board (an embedded board which can be used by all the developers who want to fully exploit the potential of the latest Microchip micro-controllers: the dsPIC DSC family - see the Datasheet), two servomotors and a touch screen.

Wireless communication is becoming more and more pervasive, that's why new development tools for wireless applications are welcome. The goal of this demo is to provide basic tools to develop more complex wireless applications, using the Erika kernel in conjunction with the FLEX Board [with a microcontroller from Microchip Datasheet]

At the Retis laboratory of Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, a moving ball was visually tracked using FLEX board with a CMOS camera.
Movements of a freely rolling ball was visually tracked, within the visual envelope of the CMOS camera, using FLEX board . The CMOS Camera is capable of returning JPEG images to the connected FLEX board hosting a Microchip dsPIC. The Flex Board also controls two servomotors which are used to articulate the camera, thereby maintaining the focus on the rolling ball.

FLEX is born as a development board where to easily develop and test real-time applications for the Microchip microcontrollers (Datasheet 2.0). Scilab/Scicos is a code generator for the FLEX Board.
Let's see how to control a DC Motor Servo using FLEX with Scilab/Scicos.

FLEX is an embedded board which can be used by all the developers who want to fully exploit the potential of the latest Microchip micro-controllers: the dsPIC DSC family.
FLEX is born as a development board where to easily develop and test real-time applications for the Microchip dsPIC DSC micro-controller.

FLEX is an embedded board which can be used by all the developers who want to fully exploit the potential of the latest Microchip micro-controllers: the dsPIC® DSC family.
FLEX is born as a development board where to easily develop and test real-time applications for the Microchip dsPIC® DSC micro-controller. The main features of FLEX are:

* robust electronic design;

* modular architecture;

* availability of a growing number of application notes;

* the full support of the Erika Enterprise real-time kernel from Evidence Srl.

The compact and essential design allows the employment of FLEX not only for development purposes, but they make the FLEX platform a suitable solution for the direct deployment into the working environment.