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PSoC

The PSoC is a family of devices made by Cypress ( http://www.cypress.com/ ) who has graciously sponsored projects in our lab. PSoC stands for 'Programmable System on a Chip'.

There are multiple families that the lab has been exposed to:
  • PSoC3
  • PSoC5LP - low power
  • PSoC4 - available in the Pioneer Kit (with Arduino shield compatible interface) or as a thumb drive sized board with headers.
  • PSoC4BLE - Bluetooth Low Energy. The motherboard is a Pioneer Kit Arduino shield compatible board but the actual PSoC BLE is a daughter board that can be programmed then removed for installation into a project.
  • PsoC6 - Includes either both WiFi / Bluetooth or Bluetooth alone, as they are targeted for IoT development.

We have a small set of development kits for these. See Booty Bay to reserve one for your project. New ones may be purchased / obtained if needed.

While many teams worry about the physical size of the microprocessor they use, it should be remembered that you are typically using an evaluation or ready made board for your prototyping. Unless your team is chartered to make the final "production" model (VERY FEW teams are in this mode), the board size is likely to not be as significant an issue as initially thought. For teams that DO require a final dimensions sized solution, they simply layout and fabricate a board to their specs. For all of these, the actual surface mount processor size is about .5" square.

Support Materials

We have a number of support materials and training workshops that can be found in the repository at source:PSoC Note that the PSoC4 is essentially the same as the PSoC4BLE - except without the BLE!

Cypress worked with Element 14, a large distributor) to develop a series of projects as samples. These are their "100 Projects in 100 Days" items found at:

https://www.element14.com/community/thread/23736/l/100-projects-in-100-days

A Cypress funded Capstone team worked with their engineering support and developed a PSoC5LP board. Two of the students, with Cypress blessing and support, launcheda Kickstarter and began their own company based on this new board: https://www.embeditelectronics.com/

Cypress has an enormous amount of support and training material on their own website. Search for their videos that teach not only the development environment (their IDE) but also how to properly apply the products.