Atmel has launched the AT91CAP9A-STK Starter Kit for its CAP Customisable Microcontroller product family. The CAP Starter Kit is the ideal vehicle for low-cost, no-risk evaluation of the customisation capabilities of the CAP MCU by mapping application-specific IP blocks into its FPGA that emulates the functionality of the CAP’s embedded metal programmable (MP) block.

Built on a single PCB including an AT91CAP9S ARM926EJ-S-based microcontroller, 64 MB of SDRAM application memory, 512 MB of NAND Flash and an optional DataFlash with up to 8 MB, together with external interfaces for Ethernet, USB Host and Device, ¼ VGA LCD Panel with Touch Screen, SD Card, four analog inputs and audio headphones, the CAP Starter Kit features an Altera Stratix2 FPGA and its associated EPCS16 serial configuration memory.

The FPGA provides 15 600 four-input lookup table (LUT) equivalents, corresponding to approximately 124 800 gates in the CAP MP Block. For application-specific external interfaces, the AT91CAP9S has 64 general-purpose I/O connections, and the FPGA has two banks of 64 I/Os. Debug is facilitated by the provision of an ICE-JTAG interface for CAP9 JTAG programming, and a USB-Blaster-JTAG interface for Stratix2 JTAG programming.

For more information contact Arrow Altech Distribution, +27 (0)11 923 9600, info@arrow.altech.co.za, www.arrow.altech.co.za, EBV Electrolink, +27 (0)21 402 1940, capetown@ebv.com, www.ebv.com