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    The best way to Create Your Coaxial Switch Strategy [Blueprint]

    Posted on July 21, 2026 by Ashlee

    I multiplied the core speed, package size, flash, and RAM capacities together, ratioed the two parts, and then took the quartic root. If you know what factors to consider then you can easily differentiate the options and make the correct buying decision. One of the major themes of this microcontroller selection guide is to show how easy it can be to get going with different parts, coaxial switch and comfortably jump around among ecosystems – picking the best part for the job. As a plus, the tool can generate project formats that target all popular development ecosystems – and not just their official System Workbench for STM32. These trip points can be easily reproduced with the new circuit and are basically the same value independent of RPM (excluding input filtering effects). Matching the time constants makes the attenuation independent of frequency. The Internet also contains anecdotes that over time the B-E junction “wears out” over a period months and the quality of noise degrades, but there is no discussion of mechanism or backup with measurements. But for casual hobbyists who may live far away from major distributors, and professionals who have to meet tight timelines, sometimes there’s no time to play around with new architectures.

    There’s a lot of headroom left in the SAM Arm microcontroller ecosystem, but if you leave the D1x/D2x line of parts, you’ll lose familiarity with some of the peripherals (especially the communications interfaces). Unfortunately, this is a fairly different process than the KE04 reviewed here – there’s no Processor Expert support, and the communications peripherals are quite different than those in the lower-end part. The Freescale KE04 and KL03 are both entry-level devices in the E and L families within the Kinetis system. The Freescale KE04 also had a basic 6-bit DAC that is pumped directly into a comparator (where these low-speed, low-resolution DACs are usually used). The tinyAVR in this review has very little headroom – these devices top out at 16 KB of flash, 2 KB of RAM, 20 MHz, and 24-pin QFN packages; however, 32 KB tinyAVR parts are soon to be released. 512 KB of flash, 128 KB of RAM, and up to 121-pin BGA packages available. The LPC811 – one of the lower-performing parts in my round-up – has several big sisters, including the LPC546xx series, a giant Cortex-M4 with 220 MHz max frequency, 512 KB of flash, 200 KB of RAM, in up to 208-pin packages.

    But it’s the newer PIC32MZ that reaches even higher: up to 252 MHz, with 2 MB of flash, and – with the DA version of the part – includes 32 MB of onboard DDR2 memory. The Nuvoton M051 has a few Cortex-M4 big sisters: the M505 has 2 MB of embedded SPI flash (sounds slow to me), and 128 KB of RAM, runs at 100 MHz, and comes in a 48-pin package. PIC18 devices can reach up to the PIC18F97J60 – a 100-pin beast with 128 KB of flash (64 K words), and almost 4K of RAM. Having said that, you can stay in the Silicon Labs 8051 family with the C8051F120 – a 100 MHz 8051 with 128 KB of flash, 8.25 KB of RAM, and a 100-pin microcontroller. Having said that, the Arm Cortex-M7-based ATSAMS70 will get you up to 300 MHz of performance, 2 MB of flash, and 384 KB of RAM, in up to 144-pin packages. With the PSoC 4000S, you’re at rock-bottom in the PSoC ecosystem, so the only direction is up – the PSoC 5 devices run at 80 MHz, with up to 256 KB of flash and 64 KB of RAM in 100-pin packages.

    Moving out of the XMC1000 ecosystem, the XMC4000 keeps the XMC1000 peripherals and swaps out the core for a Cortex-M4F, running up to 144 MHz, with 2 MB of flash, 352 KB of RAM, and up to 196-pin packaging options. The ATmega3290 keeps the 20 MHz clock speed but bumps up the pin-count to 100 pins. Renesas RL-78 extends up to the R5F101SLAFB, with 128-pin package, 512 KB of flash, 32 KB of RAM, and a slightly-faster 32 MHz clock speed. The E family has good reach up to the 168 MHz KE1x, with up to 512 KB of flash, 64 KB of RAM, and up to 100-pin packaging. The megaAVR has a bit of reach in pinning and memory. Commercial VNAs often have resistive bridge couplers to reach the kHz frequencies where transmission line based couplers aren’t practical. Next up, the STM32 line. With the MZ-DA, you can build complex graphical apps without needing an application processor running Linux (and the PCB / BSP complexity that arrives with that). Other than DAVE, CooCox, and e2 studio (which all only run on Windows), all of these toolchains have cross-platform support for Windows, macOS, and Linux.