This week, thanks to our sponsor Digi-key, we’re giving away 15 CY8CKIT-059 PSoC 5LP PROTOTYPING KITS from Cypress Semiconductor for free.

The CY8CKIT-059 PSoC 5LP Prototyping Kit features the CY8C5888LTI-LP097 from Cypress’ PSoC 5LP family, which they call the industry’s most integrated programmable SoC due to the fact that it combines Universal Digital Blocks that leverage CPLD technology, a 24-bit digital filter block (DFB) co-processor, 20-bit programmable analog front ends, a peripheral-to-peripheral DMA controller, and an ARM Cortex-M3 CPU, in just a single chip.

All of this functionality is particularly important because it means that you can offload tons of functions from the Arm CPU to the integrated logic in the peripherals. This means that the host CPU can be reserved for general-purpose applications processing so you get more bang for your buck in terms of what you can execute on the PSoC 5LP, but it also means that you can save tons of power by running analog and digital functions on special-purpose blocks that are designed for those workloads.

For example, the custom 20-bit Analog Front Ends include op amps, PGAs, filters, comparators, SAR, Delta-Sigma ADCs with bypass capacitors, and a CapSense touch-sensing CMOD capacitors, meaning that a significant chunk of the signal chain is handled before input data even reaches the CPU – if at all. A lot of that is made possible by the fact that the DMA controller allows peripheral-to-peripheral access, so you can bypass the processor altogether in a lot of cases.

To program the PSoC 5LP developers use the Cypress KitProg onboard hardware programmer and debugger with the PSoC Creator or PSoC programmer development environments. KitProg provides access to PSoC 5LP resources via an SWD interface, and also functions as a USB to UART and/or USB to I-squared-C bridge. Thanks to KitProg, you can also use the Micrium μC/Probe application to read and write memory to the device if you’re so inclined.

This is actually one of the reasons these boards are sometimes referred to as “SNAPs.” The KitProg portion of the board can literally be snapped off to program and debug other PSoC 3 and PSoC 4 devices, as well as other PSoC 5LP chips.

The Creator hardware/software co-design environment, which comes with a full library of over 100 software components that are pre-verified for the PSoC 5LP, is free. It allows users to drag, drop, and configure components into their system builds, design application firmware, and review component data sheets. The IDE can be downloaded at www.cypress.com/psoccreator.

Now, elsewhere around the board, the CY8CKIT-059 also features great flexibility. There’s also a micro-USB header with full-speed USB 2.0 connectivity that accepts 3.3 and 5.5 V power inputs, access to PSoC 5LP I/Os that operate in a breadboard-compatible format. There’s a 32 kHz external crystal oscillator that connects to some of the aforementioned peripherals via a load capacitor. Of course, there’s also a bunch LEDs and pushbuttons.

All-in-all, this is great way for users to quickly access a very flexible platform, and also introduce themselves to programmable technology – if you’re a novice or an experienced developer.

If you want a CY8CKIT-059, you can get on for the low price of $15.11 directly from the Digi-Key website, or you can enter this week’s raffle and try to win 1 of 15 kits for free…both links are below and on the screen.

Thanks for watching….good luck in this week’s raffle….see you all next week on Dev Kit Weekly. 

www.digikey.com