[September 03, 2008] Starter kit for ARM7-based microcontrollers introduced by Atmel Tweet (Telecomworldwire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Atmel Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML), a provider of microcontrollers, advanced logic, mixed-signal, non-volatile memory and radio frequency (RF) components, announced on Wednesday (2 September) its AT91CAP7A-STK Starter Kit for the evaluation of its ARM7-based CAP family of customisable microcontrollers. CAP7 customisable MCUs reportedly enable designers to migrate ARM7-plus-FPGA designs to a low-NRE, single-chip solution with approximately 30% lower unit costs, eight times better performance, 98% less static power consumption, and 70% less active power consumption. The company said that the CAP7 Starter Kit includes a printed circuit board with Atmel's ARM7-based AT91CAP7E microcontroller, Altera CycloneII EP2C8F256C7N FPGA with EPCS4SI8N serial configuration memory, 2.8" TFT LCD panel, joystick, 64MB of SDRAM application memory, 10-bit analog to digital converter (ADC), 256MB of NAND flash and a 4MB DataFlash. External interfaces include USB full-speed device, four analog inputs, external bus interface (EBI), USART, SPI, and Debug UART. The on-board Cyclone II FPGA contains 8,256 four-input Lookup Table (LUTs) logic elements equivalent to 66,048 CAP7 MP block gates. It can be used to map and emulate application-specific IP blocks, in the CAP7's embedded Metal Programmable (MP) block, along with the system software. The kit enables designers to determine how the software, MCU and new IP will work together in a customisable MCU, without incurring any NRE charges or purchasing a full development board. Designers can gauge the power consumption and performance characteristics of the CAP7 device, evaluate the ADC resolution, and experiment with the peripherals on the device. There are 32 general-purpose I/O connections on the AT91CAP7E, and 75 I/Os on the FPGA to support application-specific external interfaces. Debug is facilitated by the provision of an ICE-JTAG interface for CAP7 JTAG programming, and a USB-Blaster-JTAG interface for Cyclone II JTAG programming, the company said. The starter kit is priced at USD399. ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) Copyright ? 2008 M2 Communications Ltd. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]