PSoC Creator 2.1 is out on the streets today. And it has wobbly wires (the engineers call it rubber-banding)! When you move something around in a schematic the wires don't break any more. The tool re-draws the wires for you so you don't lose the connections between components. It saves a lot of time when you're cleaning up the design. It's great to finally have wobbly wires because a lot of you have been asking for the feature for longer than I care to admit.

I recommend installing 2.1 today (http://www.cypress.com/go/psoccreator) and trying it out. Remember that you can still do breaking moves by presssing the Control key when you move things around (and there is a Tools->Options parameter to reverse the behavior if you prefer it the other way around).

Happy wobbling!

New logo shirt? Tight khaki pants? This can only mean one thing. It's the Embedded Systems Conference! Or Design West as it is now known.

I cannot say I like the name change. Where I come from to "go west" implies a short, uncontrollable burst of lunacy! Maybe that's right after all. Only time will tell.

Anyway, if you're in San Jose and have nothing better to do then stop by the ARM booth and say "hello". There'll be at least one Cypress guy, all kitted out in logo shirt and once-a-year pants, on hand throughout the event to give you a demo and answer any PSoC-y questions you like.

A couple of blog posts ago I was moaning about using hardware design tools for software development. I wrote an article to get it off my chest. It turns out this is not an effective therapy and I wrote another one!

In this Product How-To article Mark Saunders describes a new methodology for doing firmware development for the Cypress Arm-based Programmable SoCs, using the company s PSoC Creator in combination with Arm s uVision IDE.

This time, I am talking about the mechanics of using the µVision IDE to develop firmware for a design made in PSoC Creator. I'm just out to prove the point that you really can do it I suppose.

You can download PSoC Creator 2.0 from our website for free and you can get an evaluation of the µVision IDE from ARM so there go your excuses... go on, download a bit of software and see how easy it is to split hardware design from firmware development on configurable platforms like PSoC.

I just installed PSoC Creator 2.0 Component Pack 1. I didn't like it much. The installation I mean, not the actual product. It was all over very quickly. Too quickly. It takes longer to say "PSoC Creator 2.0 Component Pack 1" than to install it. I didn't have time to go get a coffee. I like those really long install procedures where your PC is basically thrashing around, spraying files all over the place for hours. Then I can take a long lunch. This isn't like that at all. The component pack only adds a few files for the new and updated components. So it was a bit disappointing, really, and I am back to munching cafeteria sandwiches at my desk. I suppose I'll use the time I saved to try out the new components. Maybe I'll fiddle with the Filter. It does biquad filters now. I don't know what one of those is but now I have time to figure it out.

Maybe you should too?

In my last post I was writing about the new IDE integration with ARM's µVision IDE and, afterwards, got myself in a bit of a tizzy about how all these hardware+software environments are so mean to the software engineers. Those tools are so hardware-focused, with a bit of software support bolted on to make it look good, that I got onto a big high horse about it and wrote an article. I had to get it all off my chest. EE Times published it over the New Year.

"In this Product How-To article, Mark Saunders of Cypress looks at the problems of hardware/software co-development from the point of view of the software designer using the company s PSoC Creator to illustrate his exposition."

I really think this is the way software should be developed for a programmable device like PSoC. Well, ANY programmable device for that matter (here I go again). You should be able to use the IDE you want to use, not the one the hardware people give you. Have a quick read and let me know what you think!