[sdiy] A uC question and a circuit for those who need it.

[Neil Bradley]

Batz Goodfortune wrote:
> But before I disappear up my own bunghole, I seek the opinion of some 
> uber programmers out there.
> 
> I need to make a decision on a suitable embedded controller for a synth 
> application. To control and produce some wave forms. It seems to me that 
> I've got 3 choices for candidates.
> 1) an AVR
> 2) a strongARM or freescale or whatever they're calling them these days.
> 3) a 400 meg MCS51 derivative.
> 
> An AVR would probably do the job but I'd undoubtedly need 2 of them. And 
> quite a bit of glue. Suggestions of a suitable version would be handy.
> An ARM derivative would have more peripherals on board than I'd ever 
> need but would be plenty powerful enough. I've never worked with them so 
> I'd be interested to hear of anyone who hates them or otherwise. I'm not 
> sure what resources I'd need to gather to work with one either.
> One of those MAXIM MCS51 derivatives I should be able to work with but 
> they're a bit out of the relm these days. Even the fast 400meg ones. And 
> I don't know what the 16 bit ones are like.
> 
> Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

So the questions I have are:

1) What frequency range are you producing with these micros?

2) What types of waveforms are you producing? If they're square, that's easy, 
but high resolution sinewaves require a bit more umph

3) Are you doing any sort of signal processing other than simple mixing?

4) What are your budget constraints on tools?

5) What other things is the CPU exected to do?

I have experience with all of these CPUs in varying applications relevant to 
"synth applications", so knowing 1-5 will help me give you a better answer.

-->Neil