Atmel provides an entry-level development kit for custom microcontroller based on ARM7.

ATMEL Corporation announced the launch of its AT91CAP7A-STK entry-level development kit, designed to evaluate its ProcessorCustom cap Microcontroller(MCU) series of entry-level tools. The custom MCU of cap7 allows designers to transfer from the "ARM7 and FPGA" design to a low one-time R & D cost (NRE) Single ChipSolution: the cost per device is reduced by about 30%, and the performance is improved by 8 times. The static power consumption and working power consumption are reduced by 98% and 70% respectively.

 

Cap7 entry-level development kit for only $399, including a PCB with at91cap7e microcontroller based on ARM7 processor, ALTERA Cyclone II ep2c8f256c7n FPGA and epcs4si8n serial configuration memory, 2.8 inch tft LCD panel, operation lever, 64 M SDRAM application memory, 10-bit ADC) 256 mb nand Flash and 4 MB dataflash. The Development Board's external interfaces include USB full-speed devices, four analog inputs, external bus interfaces (EBI), usart, SPI, and UART debugging. In addition, it supports sensing applications with optical and temperature sensors and voltage meters.

 

The onboard Cyclone ii fpga contains 8,256 four-channel input query table (lookup table, LUT) logic components, corresponding to the 66,048 gates in the cap7 metal programmable (MP) module, about 1/7 of the overall availability logic of the cap7 device. This FPGA can be used to map and simulate specific application IP core modules and system software in the cap7 embedded metal programmable module. At91cap7e operates at 80 MHz and can receive and send data through EBI and FPGA. At91cap7e can also be connected to FPGA Through peripheral I/O (PIO) interfaces.

 

The CAP7 entry-level development kit allows designers to determine how software, MCU, and new IP cores run together with customizable MCU without having to pay for any NRE or spend thousands of dollars on a complete development board. Designers can precisely measure CAP7's superior power consumption and performance features, evaluate ADC resolutions, and use peripherals for experimentation on the device. Small design can be used to complete the simulation and Evaluation of AT91CAP7A-STK. However, for the development of custom CAP7 devices, it is recommended to use a fully functional AT91CAP7-DK, so that the customer can give full play to the CAP7 multi-layer high-speed bus (AHB) and peripheral DMA functions.

 

AT91CAP7E has 32 General I/O connections, while FPGA has 75 I/O support for specific application external interfaces. In addition, the toolkit provides a ICE-JTAG interface for CAP7 JTAG programming and a USB-Blaster-JTAG interface for Cyclone ii jtag programming, allowing users to debug more effectively.

 

Jay Johnson, ASIC product marketing director at love mel, commented: "development boards with ARM7 and FPGA are usually priced at thousands of US dollars. This $399 CAP7 entry-level development kit is the first development kit with 'arm7 and FPGA '. It provides a low-cost alternative solution to evaluate the design and verify the CAP7 concept, there are no NRE fees and risks. Both developers of top-level electronic enterprises and developers of the smallest new companies can experience the convenience of CAP when customizing ARM-based MCU for specific applications. CAP7 entry-level development kit is also an ideal tool for electronic engineering students to consolidate their system-level chip hardware and software design knowledge ."

 

Supply and price

AT91CAP7A-STK entry-level development kit is now available for $399.