AussieSusan wrote:It all depends on what you are trying to achieve.
I tend to buy the PSOC (3, 5 and 6) kits as they often come with a number of peripherals already on board, and also breakout pins. They are good enough for the initial 'playing' that I want to do and, if I get serious about using a device for one of my circuits, then I start to consider MCUs that are 'just the right size' and (in the past at least) these have ended to be SMD hand solderable.
Same goes for the STM32 devices.
On the other hand, if this is for commercial devices then BGA should not be a problem as you are probably getting a plant to do the PCB making and part soldering. (Something similar might apply to small 'sample' runs with some manufacturers.)
Susan
Currently I'm doing an original research in my spare time (theory->practice) which requires a lot of experimentation, but I don't know what the final CPU power and memory demands will be so I need to select a powerful MCU in order to start low and expand as it goes, using the same chip as long as possible, so that every bit of my effort builds on top of the previous one -to maximize development efficiency.
I also prefer to invest in a technology that has a future, and avoid completely changing the architecture and programming instructions (especially if I'll keep using assembly).
Which is why I (still) have trouble deciding to invest in the recently purchased 32-bit pics + the programmer + the days I spent to collect the documents and make the initial wiring on the breadboard, vs ditching everything and choosing another company more supporting and a technology more established and future-proof:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Smartphon ... 513.0.htmlThat ST seems a perfect candidate, it also has 144 pins at 0.5 pitch qfp (I recently managed to perfectly and safely solder a pic32mk at 64 pins and 0.5 pitch for the first time using just an iron on a schmartboard 64-pin qfp to DIP adapter), but I saw that the 208pin qfp version of that ST has the same pitch -and price and more port pins. But I'll have to make my own prototype board if I choose to use any of those to save $480 as I also happen to have a better and larger res display than the one incl. on the dev board.
Of course for commercial use one needs to deeply optimize and use the "right size" for everything, but even then, (if I had a choice), I wouldn't chose BGA as that would increase the cost of repairing such boards.
KTrenholm wrote:I also keep a couple
CY8CKIT-059 kits on hand at all times which are only $10 (USD) and a are basically a chip, a button, an LED, and some headers on the edges for I/O access. Programmer/Debugger is included on the PCB and can actually be snapped off the board. Really useful for getting a proof of concept or small project up an running.
I wish more companies made such simple kits. I prefer to expand on breadboards and change hardware at will during development.