Advantages of FIR over CIC filter in decimation

[j3lda]

Hello, I used in my diploma thesis decimating filter with factor 8 with optimalized FIR anti-aliasing filter. I need to clarify this solution - advantages of FIR and say why I chose FIR rather than CIC filter.
I heard that FIR is better than CIC filter while decimating with lower factors (under 10). Do you know why?
Do you know any other advantages of FIR and disadvantages of CIC?

Thank you very much for ideas

 

[FvM]

The question title involves a contradiction in terms, because a CIC decimator is a filter with finite impulse response as well.

So more exactly you are asking about using different FIR characteristics than CIC as a decimation filter. The general answer is quite simple, if you want a different frequency characteristic than (sin(x)/x)^n, you won't use a CIC.

CICs have been used and are still used due to there simple, resource saving (no multipliers) topology, but they lack of a steep cut-off characteristic that's often wanted in digital signal acquisition. An economic solution might be a multi-stage design with CIC and a different FIR in the last stage. Or CIC with a correction filter.