PSoC (programmable system on a chip) is a family of microcontroller integrated circuits by

Cypress Semiconductor Cypress Semiconductor was an American semiconductor design and manufacturing company. It offered NOR flash memories, F-RAM and SRAM Traveo microcontrollers, PSoC programmable system-on-chip solutions, analog and PMIC Power Management ICs, Ca ...

. These chips include a CPU core and

mixed-signal A mixed-signal integrated circuit is any integrated circuit that has both analog circuits and digital circuits on a single semiconductor die.Circuit Cellar'' magazine in 2002 and 2004. In April 2013, Cypress released the fourth generation, PSoC 4. The PSoC 4 features a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 CPU, with programmable analog blocks (

operational amplifier An operational amplifier (often op amp or opamp) is a DC-coupled high-gain electronic voltage amplifier with a differential input and, usually, a single-ended output. In this configuration, an op amp produces an output potential (relative to c ...

s and comparators), programmable digital blocks (PLD-based UDBs), programmable routing and flexible GPIO (route any function to any pin), a serial communication block (for SPI, UART,

I²C I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit, ), alternatively known as I2C or IIC, is a synchronous, multi-controller/multi-target (master/slave), packet switched, single-ended, serial communication bus invented in 1982 by Philips Semiconductors. It is wi ...

), a timer/counter/PWM block and more. PSoC is used in devices as simple as Sonicare toothbrushes and Adidas sneakers, and as complex as the

TiVo TiVo ( ) is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed and marketed by Xperi (previously by TiVo Corporation and TiVo Inc.) and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose fea ...

set-top box. One PSoC implements

capacitive sensing In electrical engineering, capacitive sensing (sometimes capacitance sensing) is a technology, based on capacitive coupling, that can detect and measure anything that is conductive or has a dielectric constant different from air. Many types of s ...

for the touch-sensitive scroll wheel on the Apple

iPod click wheel The iPod click wheel is the navigation component of non touch-screen iPod models. It uses a combination of touch technology and traditional buttons, involving the technology of capacitive sensing, which senses the touch of the user's fingers. Th ...

. In 2014, Cypress extended the PSoC 4 family by integrating a Bluetooth Low Energy radio along with a PSoC 4 Cortex-M0-based SoC in a single, monolithic die. In 2016, Cypress released PSoC 4 S-Series, featuring ARM Cortex-M0+ CPU.

Overview

A PSoC integrated circuit is composed of a core, configurable analog and digital blocks, and programmable routing and interconnect. The configurable blocks in a PSoC are the biggest difference from other microcontrollers. PSoC has three separate memory spaces: paged SRAM for data, Flash memory for instructions and fixed data, and I/O registers for controlling and accessing the configurable logic blocks and functions. The device is created using SONOS technology. PSoC resembles an ASIC: blocks can be assigned a wide range of functions and interconnected on-chip. Unlike an ASIC, there is no special manufacturing process required to create the custom configuration — only startup code that is created by Cypress' ''PSoC Designer'' (for PSoC 1) or ''PSoC Creator'' (for PSoC 3 / 4 / 5) IDE. PSoC resembles an FPGA in that at power up it must be configured, but this configuration occurs by loading instructions from the built-in Flash memory. PSoC most closely resembles a microcontroller combined with a PLD and programmable analog. Code is executed to interact with the user-specified peripheral functions (called "Components"), using automatically generated APIs and interrupt routines. ''PSoC Designer'' or ''PSoC Creator'' generate the startup configuration code. Both integrate APIs that initialize the user selected components upon the users needs in a Visual-Studio-like GUI.

Configurable analog and digital blocks

Using configurable analog and digital blocks, designers can create and change mixed-signal embedded applications. The digital blocks are state machines that are configured using the blocks registers. There are two types of digital blocks, Digital Building Blocks (DBBxx) and Digital Communication Blocks (DCBxx). Only the communication blocks can contain serial I/O user modules, such as SPI, UART, etc. Each digital block is considered an 8-bit resource that designers can configure using pre-built digital functions or user modules (UM), or, by combining blocks, turn them into 16-, 24-, or 32-bit resources. Concatenating UMs together is how 16-bit PWMs and timers are created. There are two types of analog blocks. The continuous time (CT) blocks are composed of an op-amp circuit and designated as ACBxx where xx is 00–03. The other type is the switch cap (SC) blocks, which allow complex analog signal flows and are designated by ASCxy where x is the row and y is the column of the analog block. Designers can modify and personalize each module to any design.

Programmable routing and interconnect

PSoC mixed-signal arrays' flexible routing allows designers to route signals to and from I/O pins more freely than with many competing microcontrollers. Global buses allow for signal multiplexing and for performing logic operations. Cypress suggests that this allows designers to configure a design and make improvements more easily and faster and with fewer PCB redesigns than a digital logic gate approach or competing microcontrollers with more fixed function pins.

Series

There are five different families of devices, each based around a different microcontroller core: * PSoC 1 — CY8C2xxxx series — M8C core. * PSoC 3 — CY8C3xxxx series — 8051 core. * PSoC 4 — CY8C4xxxx series — ARM Cortex-M0 core. * PSoC 5/5LP — CY8C5xxxx series — ARM Cortex-M3 core. * PSoC 6 — CY8C6xxxx series —

ARM Cortex-M4 The ARM Cortex-M is a group of 32-bit RISC ARM processor cores licensed by Arm Holdings. These cores are optimized for low-cost and energy-efficient integrated circuits, which have been embedded in tens of billions of consumer devices. Though ...

core with an added ARM Cortex-M0+ core (in some models). ;Bluetooth Low Energy Starting in 2014, Cypress began offering PSoC 4 BLE devices with integrated Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth Smart). This can be used to create connected products leveraging the analog and digital blocks. Users can add and configure the BLE module directly in PSoC creator. Cypress also provides a complete Bluetooth Low Energy stack licensed from Mindtree with both Peripheral and Central functionality. The PSoC 6 series includes versions with BLE including

Bluetooth 5 Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

features including extended range or higher speed.

Summary

Development tools

PSoC Designer

This is the first generation software IDE to design and debug and program the PSoC 1 devices. It introduced unique features including a library of pre-characterized analog and digital peripherals in a drag-and-drop design environment which could then be customized to specific design needs by leveraging the dynamically generated API libraries of code.

PSoC Creator

PSoC Creator is the second generation software IDE to design debug and program the PSoC 3 / 4 / 5 devices. The development IDE is combined with an easy-to-use graphical design editor to form a powerful hardware/software co-design environment. PSoC Creator consists of two basic building blocks. The program allows the user to select, configure and connect existing circuits on the chip and the components which are the equivalent of peripherals on MCUs. What makes PSoC intriguing is the possibility of creating its own application-specific peripherals in hardware. Cypress publishes component packs several times a year. PSoC users get new peripherals for their existing hardware without being charged or having to buy new hardware. PSoC Creator also allows much freedom in the assignment of peripherals to I/O pins.

Cortex-M

Generic ARM development tools for PSoC 4 and PSoC 5.

Documentation

;PSoC 4 / 5 The amount of documentation for all ARM chips is daunting, especially for newcomers. The documentation for microcontrollers from past decades would easily be inclusive in a single document, but as chips have evolved so has the documentation grown. The total documentation is especially hard to grasp for all ARM chips since it consists of documents from the IC manufacturer (

) and documents from CPU core vendor ( ARM Holdings). A typical top-down documentation tree is: manufacturer website, manufacturer marketing slides, manufacturer datasheet for the exact physical chip, manufacturer detailed reference manual that describes common peripherals and aspects of a physical chip family, ARM core generic user guide, ARM core technical reference manual, ARM architecture reference manual that describes the instruction set(s). ;PSoC 4 / 5 documentation tree (top to bottom): # PSoC website. # PSoC marketing slides. # PSoC datasheet. # PSoC reference manuals. # ARM core website. # ARM core generic user guide. # ARM core technical reference manual. # ARM architecture reference manual. Cypress Semiconductor has additional documents, such as: evaluation board user manuals, application notes, getting started guides, software library documents, errata, and more. See

External Links An internal link is a type of hyperlink on a web page to another page or resource, such as an image or document, on the same website or domain. Hyperlinks are considered either "external" or "internal" depending on their target or destinatio ...

section for links to official PSoC and ARM documents.