This practical and accessible text on Digital Signal Processing (DSP) is an excellent companion when delving into the world of discrete time signals and their use in microcontroller based systems. Presented with minimal mathematical treatment and supported by functional, constructive examples and tried & tested microcontroller programs, author Dogan Ibrahim empowers readers to design and implement DSP algorithms using popular PIC microcontrollers.   This book (428 pages) is...

Microchip has expanded its chipKIT platform with new tools from Digilent, Fair Use Building and Research (FUBAR) Labs and Schmalz Haus. The new tools are based on Microchip’s 32-bit PIC32 microcontrollers (MCUs) in prototyping-friendly, low pin count SOIC or SPDIP packages, previously more common in 8-bit MCUs. The aim is to enable all users to benefit from the PIC32’s high performance, memory and integrated peripherals while using the basic hobbyist prototyping equipment found in most home...

The Yun board for Arduino aims to take DIYers into the cloud. The Yun is the first of a family of low cost, low power Arduino boards that run Linux and support Wi-Fi, following the trend toward the Internet of Things (IoT). Yun, named for the Chinese word for cloud, is designed to let the average tinkerer link a new Linux gadget to the Web using a simplified browser interface.   Yun links to the Web via the Hornet AR9331 Wi-Fi chip from Qualcomm Atheros, which supports 2.4 GHz networking...

Altera has launched its Cyclone V System-on-Chip (SoC) development kit. Developed in collaboration with ARM, the kit features the recently announced ARM Development Studio 5 (DS-5) Altera Edition Toolkit software, which boasts FPGA-adaptive debugging software that enables designers to view the processor and FPGA portions of the device simultaneously.   The Cyclone V SoC Development Kit is built around the Cyclone V SX SoC with an 800 MHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9...

Microchip announces two new 8-bit PIC microcontrollers (MCUs), the PIC16F527 and PIC16F570, which combine a PIC MCU with a dual Op Amp module, an 8-bit ADC and two comparators. The new MCUs add several features to support ease of use and system robustness. The all-new hardware interrupt capability gives designers the freedom to implement more complex functions without adding software overhead, while an integrated Brown-Out Reset (BOR) can detect faults in system power and safely reset the MCU...

Linux use is growing rapidly in the embedded domain, fueled by the availability of low-cost, low-power, high-performance ARM-based MPUs with working Linux ports and communication stacks. Unfortunately, getting started with Embedded Linux can be a daunting experience due to fragmented open-source development tools with command line interfaces and a lack of interoperability. Just getting a Linux cross-development environment up and running may take hours for a Linux expert or days for an...

Teledyne LeCroy has released what the company says is the industry's first configurable decoders for Manchester and non-return-to-zero (NRZ) bitstreams for a wide range of oscilloscope platforms. The decoders enable users to specify a broad range of physical layer characteristics for Manchester or NRZ signals. The decoders define the grouping of bits into words and words into frames, which reduces analysis effort for custom and/or proprietary protocols based on those generic encoding...

Whether you’re just beginning your journey into the world of microcontroller development or you’re looking for a way to see that ambitious robotics project come to life, Flowcode 5 for AVR and Arduino offers an engaging, easy to use graphical interface that reinforces just how easy to learn (and rewarding to master) it is. Through the use of macros, Flowcode can effortlessly control complex devices such as motor controllers and LCD displays. This version exclusively supports AVR...

For years and years most microcontrollers (MCUs) have been designed around an 8-bit core. They have become so widespread that many MCU system designers have become trapped in a kind of 8-bit syndrome with all their tools and knowledge based on 8-bit systems. Have a problem? Grab an 8-bit MCU. This paradigm may soon be obsolete if we can believe the 32-bit MCU manufacturers. They do have a case as some of their products are extremely low-cost and can probably outperform any 8-bit MCU in any...

Cypress has unveiled the PSoC 4 programmable system-on-chip architecture, which combines analog and digital fabric and capacitive touch technology with ARM’s power-efficient Cortex-M0 core. The truly scalable, cost-efficient architecture delivers flexibility, analog performance and integration, along with access to dozens of free PSoC Components — “virtual chips” in Cypress’s PSoC Creator integrated design environment. The new device class will challenge proprietary 8-bit and 16-bit...

FTDI Chip, as part of its effort to help engineers create economical graphical user interfaces (GUIs), offers advanced software support for its new Embedded Video Engine (EVE) family through third party partnership. It has collaborated with tool chain vendor MikroElektronika, providing it with detailed libraries for accessing the Visual TFT graphic development solution.   The EVE family has an object based structure (where objects can be images, fonts, etc.) that presents engineers with...

A multimedia development kit based on NXP's dual-core LPC4357 ARM microcontroller is now available from element14. The high-performance, low-cost board is targeted at designers who wish to develop DSP and MCU applications within a single architecture and development environment. The MCU combines microcontroller functionality with high-performance digital signal processing features such as single-cycle MAC, single instruction multiple data (SIMD) techniques, saturating arithmetic and a...

Cypress has introduced the fully-qualified PSoC5LP programmable system-on-chip family. The new devices provide unmatched high-performance programmable analog, the best ADCs available on an ARM Cortex-M3-based device, and the flexibility to design custom systems with 80+ pre-verified production-ready “soft” components for the PSoC Creator IDE including opamps, comparators, trans impedance amplifiers (TIAs), programmable gain amplifiers (PGAs), mixers, segment LCDs, CapSense touch sensing,...

It’s that time again to retrieve the Christmas decorations from the attic and to start looking for a (real or artificial) Christmas tree. Fortunately it is now rare for such a tree to be decorated with real candles. These were replaced long ago by miniature light bulbs or even LEDs. While in the past we usually had to make do with a string of tiny, fragile light bulbs, which would flash at the most, now we can choose from many different types of LED lights with built-in light effects. But as...

Texas Instruments has developed a new, free real-time operating system (RTOS) based on a pre-emptive multithreading kernel, which will run on the full portfolio of TI microcontrollers, including dual core devices. TI-RTOS includes a deterministic, real-time multitasking kernel (SYS/BIOS) with a TCP/IP stack, including network applications, USB, EMAC, MMC/SD host and device stacks and class drivers, FAT-compatible file system fully integrated with C RTS file I/O functions and Ethernet,...