Can you suggest a solution?

[DirtyLude]

DIDN'T I SAY THAT I WAS EXCLUDING ANY SUPPORTING COMPONENTS!!!!!!!!!!

"Remember all I am asking for is the bare bones hardware requirements. I am not talking about any development tools or LCD or touch screen or power supply or any DC to DC convertor component costs. Neither am I including the pc board here.... just bare bones micro controller system requirements!"

I missed your limitation of the PCB and the power supply, just like you missed my statement that you need ROM for the OS and RAM to run it on. Your statement was, though " ...just bare bones micro controller system requirements!" and oscillators and PLL, are bare bones uC requirements. Also, I don't consider a touchscreen controller to be part of the actual touchscreen, and I would also label that as a barebones requirement. This is a technical forum things get missed or misunderstood.

The OP is pretty much what my needs are and any further details would not help my question.

I disagree. Your original post asks for graphics, backgrounds, fonts, and menu's. That can be handled easily without linux. There are embedded graphics and GUI libraries that do all of the user interface you require, no linux is needed and you can use a simpler controller with integrated ROM/RAM with still a lot of functionality left over for your custom apps.

It's this requirement:

The objective of this is to have a miniature microcomputer system which would allow me to develop any application in C inside the microcontroller.

How memory/cpu intensive are the applications you want to write? Do they require intense floating point math, or are they simply more GUI input/response applications?

 

[RobertRoss]

....

Mark,

Look, we may have gotten off to a bad start. But that's okay!

>This is a technical forum things get missed or misunderstood.

you bet!

>and oscillators and PLL, are bare bones uC requirements.

And this is why I didn't mention them, because any uC requires them, so mentioning them would not make a difference in the price regardless the controller used. This is how I hoped you would of considered it.

>Also, I don't consider a touchscreen controller to be part of the actual touchscreen, and I >would also label that as a barebones requirement.

Okay, here I did not mention "touch screen" in my op, but somehow it slipped into one of my posts and you picked up on that. No problem! As for the touch screen, I will not be using a touch screen controller. Think of it, my LCD is 1.5" ... not much room is there.... so I am simply using a 5 wire matrix touch screen which will use up 4 inputs on the uC. This will allow 4 touch screen positions on the LCD. More than eanough for what I am doing.

>How memory/cpu intensive are the applications you want to write? Do they require intense >floating point math, or are they simply more GUI input/response applications?

Naaaaa not much floating point math there.... mostly GUI/response app.
In reality a couple of screens app. 10 of them and they will always repeat with very slight differences!

>I disagree. Your original post asks for graphics, backgrounds, fonts, and menu's. >That can be handled easily without linux. There are embedded graphics and GUI >libraries that do all of the user interface you require, no linux is needed and you can >use a simpler controller with integrated ROM/RAM with still a lot of functionality left >over for your custom apps.

And that's precisely the rub! That's why I am trying to find out, which would be more expensive, the Linux way or just a simple Microchip controller with some flash to store my graphics?

Now I know that if I go with the simpler controller with integrated ROM/RAM, I can get a PIC for 3$ or 4$ (High volume) and I add some flash app. 2 megbyte at 4$ (I think that this is unit price... I don't remember ... I would have to check) and this would pretty well be my 8$ cost..... *plus* all your components such as resistors, crystal, caps, LCD, touchscreen, reset switch.... yada yada yada...................

So if I do go with a simple uC without Linux, then Microchip offers GUI libraries for a color LCD solution. However, when I spoke to them, they told me that their graphics cannot handle wallpaper. I don't even know if they handle anti alliasing !!!! And what if I want to design my own list box graphics and functionality.... would their graphics GUI libraries offer such flexibility? I seen their demo its quite nice though!

But if I go the Linux way, the way I see it, I would need a uC at 8$ plus some ram/rom which I have no clue on how much would be a realistic cost given my scenario... *plus* all components such as resistors, crystal, caps, LCD, touchscreen, reset switch.... yada yada yada...................


So that's that!

PS in my op >>> (approximately 16 mbytes to hold some graphics) should of read:
(approximately 2 mega bytes to hold some graphics) I don't have much graphics.

Robert

 

[DirtyLude]

>and oscillators and PLL, are bare bones uC requirements.

And this is why I didn't mention them, because any uC requires them, so mentioning them would not make a difference in the price regardless the controller used. This is how I hoped you would of considered it.

No, every uC does not require them. Some uC's only require a crystal, and no PLL, some require nothing and have the entire oscillator on chip. If you are pricing for a specific component, you price the hardware block, which includes all required hardware from the datasheet. If you went to a lower speced part you could save on the cost of those components.

Seriously, don't get mad at me again, but gather up very detailed requirements and send this to engineering consultants. We are making wild guesses here. There are loads of requirements that we do not know. Graphics refresh speed, device bootup time, you say you want drop down menu's, but a 4 block touchscreen interface is all you need? I would have to assume you have other inputs then. Do you need in field firmware updates? What's the Temperature and environmental specs, power draw requirements... this is all stuff that designers will work with you on.

...and 1.5"^2 is plenty of room for touchscreen with a stylus. They can be very precise.

 

[DirtyLude]

If you are pricing for a specific component, you price the hardware block, which includes all required hardware from the datasheet.

Actually, I want to amend this, because I found out the hard way that manufacturers sometimes put the minimum requirements in the datasheet to make their implementation price look better. It's best to have someone with experience pick required components based on the hardware. Minimum requirements may not be what you need, especially when it comes to power filtering and decoupling.

 

[RobertRoss]

....

ooofffff!

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