development kit News - Page 38 of 43 - CNX Software

February 11, 2013February 11, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Infineon Hexagon Application Kit (XMC4500 Enterprise Edition) Overview and Quick Start Guide

A few months ago, Infineon sent me XMC4500 Relax Lite Kit for review, and I wrote a short Getting Started Guide about this 10 Euros Cortex M4 devkit. This month, I’ve received another XMC4500 kit with more features and expansion abilities: XMC4500 Enterprise Edition which is one of their Hexagon Application Kit. I received two packages: CPU Board XMC4500 General Purpose (CPU_45A-V2) with accessories (55 Euros) – This is what you get when you order to Basic Kit. J-Link Lite Cortex-M Debugger (40 Euros) Let’s open the packages and see what’s inside. In the first package, we’ve got XMC4500 CPU board, a pin extension board that can be used on any of the 3 extension connectors of the CPU board to access the signals easily, and a microUSB to USB cable for power. The JLink debugger comes with a 10-pin ribbon cable, and a microUSB to USB cable to connect to the […]

February 9, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

$299 Microsemi SmartFusion2 Starter Kit (Cortex M3 + FPGA)

Microsemi SmartFusion2 SoC family combines an ARM Cortex-M3 Core @ 166 Mhz and FPGA Fabric with up to 12M Gates, and comes with up to 512 KB eNVM and 64 KB eSRAM, 1 CAN A & B interface, 1 GbE port, 1 USB 2.0 OTG, and diverse serial interface. Last year I received Emcraft SmartFusion Starter Kit using the first generation of the starter kit, and Microsemi (previously known as Actel) and Emcraft Systems have recently announced the second generation with the SmartFusion2 Starter Kit. The main hardware features include: SmartFusion2 SoC FPGA in FG896 package (M2S050T-FG896ES) with 256KB eNVM, 64KB SRAM, and 48,672 logic modules. JTAG interface for programming of the SmartFusion2 device 10/100 Ethernet interface and RJ-45 connector USB OTG interface and mini-USB connector USB based Wi-Fi Module 64MB LPDDR, 16MB SPI flash User push-button connected to GPIO on the SOM Two user-controlled LEDs connected to GPIO on […]

February 5, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Atmel Introduces SAMA5D3 Cortex A5 Embedded MPUs and Evaluation Kits

Atmel has recently announced the Atmel SAMA5D3 series, a family of high performance, low-power microprocessor units (MPUs) based on ARM Cortex-A5 core. The SAMA5D3 series is designed for embedded applications in the industrial space, including factory and building automation, smart grid, medical and handheld terminals, as well as consumer applications such as smart watches, outdoor GPS, and DECT phones. SAMA5D3 family has the following characteristics: ARM Cortex-A5 core up to 536MHz (850DMIPS). Floating point unit (FPU) with up to 3 times the performance of Cortex A8 FPU. 166MHz bus speed delivering up to 1328MB/s bandwidth. Power consumption: <200mW in active mode at 536MHz with all peripherals activated 0.5mW in low-power mode with SRAM, registers retention and <0.5ms wake-up time ~1.2µA in backup mode with RTC running Connectivity: Dual Ethernet and dual CAN ports (Only one model has both) Gigabit Ethernet MAC with IEEE1588 and 10/100 MAC Two CAN controllers 3x […]

February 4, 2013February 4, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Texas Instruments HG3352 Home Automation & Energy Gateway Reference Design

Texas Instruments has recently announced HG3352 Home Gateway Reference Design that can connect to home energy systems, or/and home automation systems. This reference design, powered by TI Sitara AM3352 Cortex A8 processor, supports ZigBee, Wi-Fi, NFC, Bluetooth, and Ethernet connectivity to allow developers to create home gateways that can interface with multiple systems, products and applications within a smart home. Here are the key features and benefits of TI HG3352 Home Gateway Reference Design: SoC – TI Sitara’s AM3352 ARM Cortex-A8 processor running Linux OS System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 2GB NAND Flash memory Connectivity: Single ZigBee device (CC2530) supports ZigBee Home Automation and ZigBee Smart Energy standards. WiLink 8.0 solution supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Bluetooth low energy in a single chip. 6-channel power management integrated circuit (TPS650250) with dynamic voltage scaling provides high power efficiency. Expansion headers give developers flexibility to support power line communications (PLC) and […]

February 4, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Crazyflie Nano Quadcopter Open Source Development Kit

If you can’t wait until 2014 to get the MeCam, Seeedstudio has something for you: The Crazyflie Nano Quadcopter, which looks similar to the MeCam, but does not feature a camera, its control board is powered by STM32F103CB MCU @ 72 MHz with 128kb flash and 20kb RAM (so, no it won’t run Linux), and at $173 the price is significantly higher. Here are Crazyflie key features: Small and lightweight, around 19g and about 90mm motor to motor Flight time up to 7 minutes with standard 170mAh Li-Po battery Standard micro-USB connector for charging which takes ~20min for the stock 170mAh Li-Po battery On-board low-energy radio@1mW based on the nRF24L01+ chip. Up to 80m range (environment dependent) when using the Crazyradio 2.4 GHz USB dongle Radio bootloader which enabled wireless update of the firmware 32 bit Cortex M3 MCU: STM32F103CB @ 72 MHz (128kb flash, 20kb RAM) 3-axis high-performance MEMs […]

January 31, 2013March 21, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

ARM MCU Development in Linux with Energy Micro’s Simplicity Studio, Eclipse, and CodeSourcery Toolchain

Quite a few months ago, I received an Energy Micro EFM32 Tiny Gecko Starter Kit, but I haven’t done much with it. But recently I saw a tweet from EnergyMicro about Simplicity Studio supports for Ubuntu, and I know it can be problematic to find proper tools for ARM MCU development in Linux, so I decided to give it a try. The first part is about Simplicity Studio, and energyAwareTools which are specific to Energy Micro, but the second part deals with setting up Eclipse and CodeSourcery ARM toolchain for MCU development which should be reusable for other MCUs from vendors such as Texas Instruments, NXP and STMicro. I’ve used a PC running Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit with the instructions below. Installing Simplicity Studio and energyAwareTools in Ubuntu Simplicity Studio is part of the 4 steps of the getting started guide with EFM32 MCUs. It has been available for Linux for […]

January 27, 2013January 27, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Marvell SMILE Plug DevKit is Now Available for $199

The SMILE Plug is a development kit, designed jointly by Marvell and Standford University, that brings Wi-Fi connectivity to a classroom, and allows up to 60 pupils / students to interact with their teacher via their phones’ or tablets’ web browser. Other possible applications include cloud computing, wireless AP, industrial control, medical instrumentation, office automation, as well as mesh and grid computing. The SMILE Plug is now available with the following updated specifications: SoC – Marvell ARMv7 compliant Marvell ARMADA 370 CPU System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 Storage – 1 GB NAND Flash + microSD slot Connectivity WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n via Marvell Avastar 88W8764 4×4 WiFi for up to 60 nodes 2x Gigabit Ethernet USB – 2x USB 3.0 External backup battery for hours of reserve power* (optional accessory) Power on button and restart Power Supply – 12V/2amp external power supply JTAG and UART port for programming and debugging […]

January 24, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

$199 Gizmo Explorer Kit Powered by AMD G-Series APU is Now Officially Available

Back in November, I came across the Gizmo Explorer Kit, an embedded development platform based on AMD G-Series G-T40E dual core APU that includes the development board itself (Gizmo Board), two expansion I/O boards, Sage SmartProbe JTAG development tool, some accessories such as cables and power supply, and a DVD with the documentation and SDK. Today, Sage Electronic, Texas Multicore Technologies, and Viosoft officially launched GizmoSphere community that aims at “fostering innovation and development for x86-based embedded Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), and driving and enabling technology projects of interest to independent developers with a focus on stimulating and encouraging innovation for existing and new applications that leverage APUs”. To help with this initiative, they also produce the Gizmo Board, and corresponding Gizmo Explorer Kit, a development board that boots with coreboot, and can run a variety of operating systems such as Android, Linux, Windows, and other RTOS. You can refer to […]