Howdy all,
here's the scenario: I need to read from an array of sensors. I'll have at least 6 arrays, probably more in the future. I'm thinking of making an embedded circuit so that the sensors act as plug and play peripherals in a larger system. The goal is to reduce the number of wires: sensors have 8 wires for 16 sensels in an array. Toss this into a uC and address the uC's by I2C or something and we can reduce the number of wires substantially for the entire system.
But here's the deal: I also need to be able to do on-site preprocessing of the sensor data, that'll involve a lot of basic Multiply-Add operations and probably some division. I'm thinking of something based off the ARM Cortex M0 or M3, and extra points go to the uC being 32 bit.
Does anyone know of a 32-bit uC that's small (ie: can be packaged in less than 1.5cm x 1.5cm, with surface mount technology, of course), capable, and preferably easy to use?
I'm looking at the ATMEL chips that use the M3 (for example, this one:
http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/product_docs.asp?category_id=163&family_id=605&subfamily_id=2127&part_id=5002). I'm going to guess that programming this is considerably harder than programming an Axon, right? It's not a big deal, I'll have to figure it out anyway.
So, anyone use anything that might do the trick? I intend to make my own circuit and have the boards printed, so I don't need a ready-made solution.
MIKE
