Atmel Unveils AVR XMEGA C, tinyAVR ATtiny1634 and AVR UC3 L3/D4 MCUs

Atmel announced 14 new Atmel AVR microcontrollers divided into 4 families: AVR XMEGA C, tinyAVR ATtiny1634, AVR UC3 L3 and AVR UC3 D4. Atmel AVR XMEGA C MCUs Atmel AVR XMEGA C MCUs are 8-/16-bit general-purpose MCUs with Full-Speed USB, 12-bit ADC, up to 384 KB flash and 32 KB SRAM. They can support Atmel QTouch Library for implementation of capacitive buttons, sliders and wheels functionality. The AVR XMEGA C MCUs consume 700nA in sleep mode with RTC. There 8 new XMEGA C MCUs which target consumer, industrial and home automation applications such as thermostats with display, building and climate control, utility meters with RF and ZigBee connectivity. The smallest XMEGA C MCU (ATxmega16C4), which comes in 44-pin package and has 16KB device, is the cheapest AVR XMEGA device with USB provided by Atmel. You can find further information on Atmel AVR XMEGA C page. Atmel tinyAVR ATtiny1634 MCU Atmel […]

Embedded Artists NXP LPCXpresso Motor Control Kit Promotion

Embedded Artist and NXP have jointly designed the LPCXpresso Motor Control Kit to easily get started with motor control prototyping. This platform is based on NXP LPCXpresso MCUs and can control BLDC (Brushless DC), BLAC (Brushless AC), stepper and dual brushed DC motors. This is not a new design (2010), but Embedded Artist and NXP are discounting their development kit by 50% for a limited period, which brings the price of the kit to 149 Euros, instead of 299 Euros. The kit includes: LPCXpresso Motor Control Board LPCXpresso LPC1114 Board (The “stick” on the left in the picture above) LPCXpresso Eclipse-based IDE and GNU compiler BLDC Motor with hall sensors 24V Power supply (60W) Here are the specifications of the Motor Control Board: Controller MCU • Socket for LPCXpresso LPC1114 and LPC1343 • Socket for LPCXpresso LPC176x • Socket for LPC1xxx in PLCC44 • Expansion connector for control by LPC1800/LPC4000/LPC2900 […]

Olimex A13-OLinuXino Could Become a Proper Raspberry Pi Alternative

Olimex recently announced they produced the first 10 prototypes of iMX233-OLinuXino Development Board, a low-end Linux development board that will cost 30 Euros, with specifications inferior to the Raspberry Pi. They have now announced their plan to design A13-OLinuxXino development board based on the new AllWinner A13 chipset, a strip down version of AllWinner A10 without HDMI nor SATA. Thanks to the low cost of AllWinner A13 (5 USD for very large orders / 10 USD in smaller quantities), Olimex plans to sell the new A13-OLinuxXino board for the same price as the iMX233-OLinuXino but with a faster 1GHz Cortex A8 processor and 256 or 512 MB RAM. I assume their will be 2 versions as well, the MINI for 29,95 Euros and the MAXI version with 2 more USB 2.0 host ports and 10/100Mbit Ethernet for 44.95 Euros. This board could be a very interesting alternative to the Raspberry […]

Energy Micro Unveils 2 New Gecko Cortex M3 Starter Kits: EFM32LG-STK3600 and EFM32GG-STK3700

Energy Micro introduced two starter kits (STK) for complex battery-powered products such as portable health and fitness devices and smart accessories: EFM32LG-STK3600 – Based on the EFM32LG990F256 MCU (Cortex M3 ) with 256KB on-chip flash and 32KB RAM. EFM32GG-STK3700 – Based on the EFM32GG990F1024 MCU (Cortex M3 ) with 1MB on-chip Flash and 128KB RAM Both the Leopard Gecko and Giant Gecko MCU can directly control a TFT display and feature a USB driver that supports the Host, Device and On-the-Go (OTG) protocols. The new STKs are also equipped with light, metal and touch sensors which allow designers to work with the LESENSE Low Energy Sensor interface allowing passive sensing of 16 sensors without host CPU intervention. The hardware feature set is completed by a USB plug, 32MB on-board NAND Flash, LCD and a variety of LEDs and push-buttons. The two EFM32 starter kits includes debugging support with a  full […]

199 USD iWave Systems Freescale i.MX508 RainboW-G13S Development Board

iWave Systems has just uploaded a new video of its new Freescale .i.MX508 low cost development board RainboW-G13S Quick Start Board, an alternative to the original Freescale i.MX53 QSB. This board targets the development of eReaders, industrial kiosks, home/industrial/office automation, portable medical devices and appliance control applications. Here are the specifications of this development board: CPU – Freescale i.MX508 processor  (Cortex A8) @ 800MHz System Memory – 256MB LPDDR2 Storage – 2/4 GB micro SD card loaded with boot code and Linux, 4MB SPI Flash (optional) and 8 GB eMMC (optional) Connectivity – 10/100Mbps Ethernet USB – Micro USB 2.0 Device port, 2x USB 2.0 Host Type A port Standard SD port for SDIO expansions Video Output – VGA Audio – Audio IN & OUT port Debug Ports –  DB9 Debug Serial port &  JTAG connector Expansion connector port for EPD & LCD expansion. The company provides Board Support Packages […]

Texas Instruments F28069 Piccolo controlSTICK Unboxing and Review

I’ve recently received a TI F28069 Piccolo controlSTICK evaluation kit after winning a game organized by Mouser and Texas Instruments on Facebook. I’ll show what’s the content of this C2000 MCU development kit and play around with the development tools provided. Mouser sent the development tools by Fedex which took 6 days to arrive in Thailand, and the package with the development tools looks like the one below. You’ll find the following in the package: F28069 Piccolo controlSTICK USB Cable 6x Jumpers 2x Cables to connect to external hardware CD with Piccolo F28069 controlSTICK development tools Here’s a closer look to the top of Piccolo controlSTICK, with (left to right) the JTAG emulator chip, C2000 MCU (320F28069PNA) and connector… …and the bottom of Piccolo controlSTICK. Now let’s have a look at the content of the CD: The Drivers directory contains the drivers needed for the controlSTICK development kit (also used […]

Locux: 15 USD Freescale i.MX233 System On Module

These days, low cost boards seem to pop-up a bit everywhere…  Featuring the same processor as Olimex OLinuXino, the Locux board will be powered by a Freescale i.MX233 with 64 MB and boot from a microSD card (no NAND on the board). This project is quite different from other low cost board projects, since it is a system on module (SoM) and will require a carrier board to access peripherals such as Ethernet, USB Host and video output, although  the developers managed to boot it with a simple breadboard. The developers also explain that this board stands apart as it does not feature any BGA parts and can be hand soldered, which could be an advantage when sourcing the boards and some hobbyist may also like to do the soldering themselves. The Raspberry Pi is still hard to get and the some other low cost boards such as the Beaglebone […]

30 Euros Olimex iMX233-OLinuXino Linux Development Board

Olimex announced the first 10 prototypes of OLinuXino development board. Started in March of this year, OLinuXino is a development board based on Freescale i.MX233 aiming to provide a low cost (30 Euros)  open source hardware and software single board computer to run Linux. Here are the specifications of OLinuXino single board computer: Freescale iMX233 454Mhz ARM9 processor 64MB of RAM Linux bootable image from SD-CARD TV-Video Output USB host for Keyboard, camera, WiFi, etc interfacing UEXT connector and GPIO connectors with the same style as DuinoMite so that developers can add external modules supporting Zigbee, Bluetooth, RFID readers, relays, switches, sensors, etc… The company also plans to provide 2 plug-in modules for this board: iMX-LCD – a 4.3″ TFT 24 bit color LCD with touchscreen (EUR 30) MX-HUB – A board adding 2 USB hosts and Ethernet (EUR 15) [Update: The company will actually make 2 versions of this […]

EDATEC Raspberry Pi 5 fanless case