EETimes Analog sliceKIT review/roadtest
Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2014 1:58 pm
Duane Benson of Screaming Circuits has written a blog on his experiences using an xCORE Analog sliceKIT for the first time (and the tools!).
Experimenting with an XMOS Multicore MCU
Experimenting with an XMOS Multicore MCU
This is part 1 of an ongoing blog series. I'll post up the next one when it appears.I found it first disappointing, then intriguing, and -- finally -- welcome, that peripherals are all software defined. My initial concern came from what little I know about software (a.k.a. bit-banged) peripherals. Bit-banging in an 8-bit device is a decent quick hack, but is limited and difficult to maintain in real-time when loading up the MCU with other code.
However, because of the performance difference, combined with the fact that the xCORE is designed for this, software-defined peripherals can be a real advantage here. You don't need to buy a different variety of MCU to get a different set of peripherals. That's huge.