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Battle of the Engineers - Hardware vs. Software

24/02/2012
For the hardware engineer, software is regarded as a necessary evil; totally unintelligible and the root cause of most system crashes. The software engineer on the other hand, views the hardware as a
Make your own walking, talking, living….robot

29/02/2012
- Accelerometers
- ARM
- Beagle
- Coldfire
- Communication
- Cortex-M
- Development Kits - Electronics
- DSP
- dsPIC
- Freescale
- Interconnect
- Manufacture
- Mbed
- Memory
- Microcontrollers
- PIC
- PIC32
- Power
- Programming
- Raspberry Pi
- Research Phase
- Robots
- Sensors
- Serial Peripheral Interface
- Test
As I wrote this blog Raspberry Pi exploded on the scene taking everyone by surprise with the sheer volume of people wanting to buy it. Many readers will have to wait a while to get their hands on one so why not use the time to investigate rather more interesting projects than just writing games? How about giving a humanoid walking robot some Artificial Intelligence…
Fun, Forth and FIGnition

23/05/2012
- ARM
- Assembly
- Development Kits - Electronics
- FLASH
- Interconnect
- Memory
- Microcontrollers
- PIC
- Power
- Programming
- Raspberry Pi
- Robots
- RX
- SERIAL
- Solder
- Test
This post is not about Raspberry Pi. Sorry about that; I thought I'd take a break from all that heady stuff about HD graphics and ARM processors to look at a similar sized and priced beginners' computer board, but located towards the Arduino end of the processor power spectrum. It comes as a kit of parts and you have to solder it together yourself.
Use your Cortex in the ARM jungle

15/12/2011
- ARM
- Batteries
- Communication
- Cortex-A
- Cortex-M
- Cortex-R
- Development Kits - Electronics
- DSP
- Enclosures
- FLASH
- Freescale
- Manufacture
- Mbed
- Memory
- Microcontrollers
- Microprocessors
- MIPS
- PIC
- PIC32
- Power
- Reliability Testing
- Research Phase
- Robots
- Test
There was a time when deciding which microprocessor to use for a new project was pretty easy: there weren’t that many to choose from. Who remembers the Intel 8080, Motorola 6800 or the CBM 6502? The
Will FRAM’s ultra low power, faster speed and better data Integrity see the demise of flash?

27/07/2011
What’s the difference between, FRAM, F-RAM and FeRAM?, Well it’s the same thing!, it's Ferroelectic RAM. Texas Instruments (TI) are among the first to offer a family of Microcontrollers with
Old and New at Sci-Fi London 2012

10/05/2012
- Analogue
- Arduino
- ARM
- ARM11
- Development Kits - Electronics
- Display & Lighting
- FLASH
- H8
- Human Machine Interface
- Interconnect
- Manufacture
- Memory
- Microcontrollers
- PIC
- Power
- Programming
- Raspberry Pi
- Research Phase
- Robots
- Sensors
- SERIAL
- Serial Peripheral Interface
- Test
A major highlight of a week of activity at the Sci-Fi London festival was the Horizon Spectrum event at the BFI Southbank celebrating 30 years of the Sinclair Spectrum 'home' computer. I attended the
Raspberry Pi with an ancient ancestor….

19/04/2012
It’s extraordinary: the release of a new piece of computing technology has generated a huge wave of nostalgia for 30 year old kit such as the Sinclair ZX81, ZX Spectrum and the BBC Micro.
Treading the Boards in the entry-level open-source community

24/02/2012
- 802.11b
- Arduino
- ARM
- Beagle
- Cortex-M
- Development Kits - Electronics
- Ethernet
- Freescale
- Functional Test
- Interconnect
- LCD
- Manufacture
- Mbed
- Memory
- Microcontrollers
- PIC
- Research Phase
- RS232
- SERIAL
- USB (Universal Serial Bus)
- WiFi
An extract from an article in Etech issue 9 by Dr William Marshal, Twiiter @WilliamMarshal1The competition for hearts and minds in the opensource embedded development community continues apace with mi
Hands on with a 144 core processor

16/07/2012
The GA144 from GreenArrays is a highly novel 144 core processor that combines high performance with low power consumption. This post covers initial experiences with breadboarding the GA144 and using t
Papilio Gives You Wings | Review of the Papilio One Dev Platform

24/10/2011
- Arduino
- Development Kits - Electronics
- EEPROM
- FLASH
- FPGA
- Human Machine Interface
- Interconnect
- Memory
- PIC
- Power
- Programming
- Test
- USB (Universal Serial Bus)
- Verilog
- VHDL
Over the last few months I’ve been trying out a number of low cost FPGA development boards with the view to how easy new people can get involved. FPGAs and the languages like VHDL and Verilog are no
The Changing Role of the Development kit

04/05/2012
Roughly ten years ago, the embedded world was a simpler place (or at least it seemed to be), and the development kit off ered an excellent starting point for an embedded design project. Like the prove
Why reinvent the wheel?

16/02/2012
From the release of the first PC by IBM back in 1981, engineers have found more and more creative ways of using this system architecture. True, many things have changed over the years, but execu
mbed NXP LPC11U24 Review

06/02/2012
- Arduino
- ARM
- Cortex-M
- Development Kits - Electronics
- Display & Lighting
- Ethernet
- FLASH
- Mbed
- Memory
- Microcontrollers
- PIC
- Power
- Robots
- Test
- USB (Universal Serial Bus)
There can’t be many people who don't know about the ARM mbed. This has been right up there with the Arduino as the standard for development boards for some time now. However over the last year we ha
FRAM Dev Kit MSP-EXP430FR5739 Review

04/10/2011
There has been a lot of buzz and stories going around about the first micro to have FRAM (Ferroelectric memory). FRAM has been talk about it not only here on DesignSpark but on element14 and was comme
Atomic Time for the Raspberry Pi

30/05/2012
- Human Machine Interface
- Memory
- PIC
- Raspberry Pi
- Research Phase
- SERIAL
- Standards
- Test
- Wired
One of the ways the Raspberry Pi keeps costs low is by omitting a real-time clock (RTC) chip. When connected to the Internet system time can be set from NTP servers, but when you don't have Internet a
Using an Arduino in a Production environment

05/07/2010
- Arduino
- Capacitors
- Circuit Design
- Display & Lighting
- Human Machine Interface
- LCD
- Manufacture
- Memory
- PCB
- PIC
- Power
- Resistors
- SERIAL
- Test
Introduction The requirement was to add a digital readout to an otherwise manually bend roller machine so that we could accurately monitor the amount of material fed into the machine. Th
NetWorker - an advanced web server with a microcrontroller

13/04/2011
- Analogue
- Capacitors
- Circuit Design
- Communication
- Display & Lighting
- DSP
- dsPIC
- EEPROM
- Ethernet
- FLASH
- Functional Test
- GAL
- Human Machine Interface
- Interconnect
- Manufacture
- Mbed
- Memory
- Microcontrollers
- PIC
- PIC24
- PIC32
- Power
- Programming
- Research Phase
- Resistors
- RS232
- RX
- SERIAL
- Serial Peripheral Interface
- Solder
- Test
- Trial & Evaluation
An Internet connection would be a valuable addition to many projects, but often designers are put off by the complexities involved. The ‘NetWorker’, which consists of a small printed circuit board
Another dev kit disguised as a robot

06/05/2011
I've posted on this theme before...Now it's Freescale's turn to use robotics to entice the engineer jaded with all the development kits on offer.From the datasheet:
Leaflabs Maple Dev Kit Review

31/10/2011
Sometimes you can get excited about a Dev Kit before you even switch it on, but can the Leaflabs Maple Board live up to my exportation's or will this just be another STM32 fail? So this last few weeks
TI helps launch robotic toys for the holidays. Presenting: "Mechatars"

28/10/2011
These awesome robots contain two TI systems-on-chips (SoCs): the CC2511F32 radio transceiver, 8051 MCU, 32-kilobyte (kB) Flash memory and full-speed USB interface in the body of the toy; and the CC2
Raspberry Pi and Custard - Engineers first hands on Review.

10/04/2012
The Raspberry Pi (aka Raspi) was released back at the end of February but here we are weeks later with no real hardware. We engineers are only interested in the guts of this product.
Charting the Convergence to a Common Controller Core

16/02/2012
- ARM
- Cortex-M
- Freescale
- Functional Test
- H8
- Manufacture
- Mbed
- Memory
- Microcontrollers
- Microprocessors
- MIPS
- PIC
- Power
- RENESAS
- Safety Testing
- SuperH
- Test
- Wireless
This is an extract from an article in the latest eTech MagazineThe general-purpose microcontroller, or MCU, is now a commodity product. Perhaps this is an overstatement. But in one sense, at least, it
Using the eZ430 Chronos with a Raspberry Pi

01/06/2012
- Accelerometers
- Communication
- Development Kits - Electronics
- Microcontrollers
- MSP430
- PIC
- Power
- Pressure Sensors
- Raspberry Pi
- Sensors
- SERIAL
- Test
- Wireless
- x86
The eZ430 Chronos development kit from Texas Instruments represents great value for money and provides a wristwatch with a wireless-enabled microcontroller, accelerometers and temperature...
How many Engineers does it take to change an LED light bulb?...

25/10/2011
…None. They are all too busy trying to design the perfect LED lighting application!”…It seems to me that LED lighting applications (Light Emitting Diodes) are popping up everywhere, from handhel
DE0-NANO FPGA Development Kit Review - Terasic

31/07/2011
- 740
- Accelerometers
- Circuit Design
- Development Kits - Electronics
- Display & Lighting
- DRAM
- EEPROM
- Enclosures
- FLASH
- FPGA
- Human Machine Interface
- Mbed
- PIC
- Power
- Programming
- Switches
- Test
- USB (Universal Serial Bus)
- VHDL
When it come to most Dev Kits people can normally find one that fits their needs. However when entering the world for FPGA’s people are always asking which kit to buy. Why? Well they have always
VCNL4000 Proximity / Ambient light sensor Demo Kit Review

17/07/2012
Having played with a lot of FPGA development kits in the past few years, it was nice to be given a completely different product to test and review. So what do you get?The kit comes in a mini DVD
Google Groks Hardware

11/05/2011
Google's Android Open Accessory Development KitIt was only a matter of time before the mighty Google put a toe in the open source hardware waters, and this finally came about yesterday with the releas
Raspberry Pi: By a non-expert in Linux

12/03/2012
- FLASH
- Interconnect
- Memory
- PIC
- Power
- Raspberry Pi
- Test
Like my colleague at RS, I had a chance to play with one of the first Raspberry Pi boards in the UK. My remit was to see how easy it is for someone unfamiliar with Linux to get a system working.
HD Audio from ground up (Part 1)

18/05/2011
- Analogue
- ARM
- Capacitors
- Circuit Design
- Communication
- Cortex-M
- DSP
- FLASH
- Functional Test
- Human Machine Interface
- Interconnect
- LCD
- Mbed
- Memory
- Microcontrollers
- PIC
- Power
- Programming
- Research Phase
- Resistors
- Serial Peripheral Interface
- Test
- Trial & Evaluation
There are different ways for a system to interact with the real world. Starting with the use of a simple LED that describes the state of a process and going all the way down to complicated graphic LCD
The Arduino Effect

09/11/2011
- Arduino
- ARM
- AVR
- Beagle
- Chipkit
- Cortex-A
- Cortex-M
- Development Kits - Electronics
- DSP
- FRAM
- Freescale
- Manufacture
- Mbed
- Microcontrollers
- MSP430
- PIC
- PIC32
- Power
- Programming
- Research Phase
- Robots
- Serial Peripheral Interface
- Test
I’ve noticed an interesting trend recently. Forgive my lack of awareness if this has all been said before, but here it is: microcontroller chip manufacturers are making/supporting some very cheap development kits nowadays.
Processing on the Raspberry Pi

30/07/2012
- Accelerometers
- Arduino
- ARM
- Development Kits - Electronics
- PCB Etching
- PIC
- Programming
- Raspberry Pi
- RX
- SERIAL
- Wireless
A look at getting the Processing programming language and IDE up and running on a Raspberry Pi, and example code working with the TI Chronos eZ430 development kit.Processing is a programming language
A Raspberry Pi (VAX) Cluster

11/06/2012
- Communication
- Enclosures
- Ethernet
- FRAM
- Memory
- PIC
- Raspberry Pi
- RS232
- SERIAL
- Test
- Wired
In a blog post last month I looked at how a Raspberry Pi can be used to emulate a formidable IBM mainframe, and in this post I describe how a pair can be used to emulate VAX computers
Xbee and mbed streaming live data

11/06/2012
I seen a few reviews now of devices like the Xbee and they never seem very exciting. So this is the first of a number of posts I'll be writing were you see me using the product. So let get started and
Microchips new MPLAB X and PIC32 Starter Kit running on Ubuntu

28/03/2011
This weekend I decided to push the limits of my own skills and Microchip and see if I could install MPLAB on Linux, then run and compile to a PIC32 Starter kit. I have never considered going along
Learning how to be Smarter with Energy

08/12/2010
RS hosts Microchip seminars.
TAUTIC - CPLD Development Board Review

14/04/2012
- Arduino
- Circuit Design
- Circuit Simulation
- Development Kits - Electronics
- FLASH
- FPGA
- Human Machine Interface
- Interconnect
- Mbed
- PIC
- PLD
- Power
- Programmable Logic
- Programming
- SERIAL
- Solder
- Test
- Verilog
- VHDL
There seems to be more and more people getting into FPGA design and development. There are some very cheap, sorry, low cost kits out there too. Right down in the low end starter kits is one new kit th
Pi Perspectives: Jeremy Ruston (Federatial)

28/03/2012
Image © Nick J. Webb (CC BY 2.0)Jeremy Ruston is the inventor of TiddlyWiki and founder of software consultancy, Federatial Ltd, and gained his introduction to computing during those heady
Easy as Pi, teaching 7-9 year olds programming

28/06/2012
- FLASH
- LASER
- Memory
- PIC
- Power
- Programming
- Raspberry Pi
- Test
As I turned my head, a blackboard rubber travelling at what seamed 100mph whooshed past my ear leaving a trail of chalk dust. Luckily I wasn't the target, and it was a good job too, as the origin of t
Microchip EDF - Report

19/11/2010
- Batteries
- Communication
- Display & Lighting
- DSP
- dsPIC
- Ethernet
- GPS
- Human Machine Interface
- Mbed
- Memory
- MiWi
- PIC
- PIC24
- Power
- Scientific Applications
- Serial Peripheral Interface
- Test
- USB (Universal Serial Bus)
- Wired
- Wireless
- Zigbee
Yesterday, anyone following me on Twitter will have seen that I attended the 2010 Microchip EDF (Embedded Design Forum) at RS Components in Corby. As an engineer it’s important for me and my employe
Microchip Motor Control Starter Kit Review - DM330015

16/01/2012
At ebm-papst are well known as a fan manufacture so I was keen to see the latest development kit from Microchip, the Motor Control Starter kit. So I was interested to see how easy it is to setup and u
So when will we get the Star Trek Tricorder then?

19/01/2012
- ARM
- ARM11
- Communication
- Cortex-M
- Development Kits - Electronics
- Enclosures
- Ethernet
- Human Machine Interface
- Interconnect
- Mbed
- PIC
- Power
- Programming
- Raspberry Pi
- Research Phase
- Robots
- Sensors
- Serial Peripheral Interface
- Switches
- Test
A competition has been announced with a $10m prize for the first working medical tricorder. If you claim to be an engineer and don't know what I'm talking about, then may I suggest locking yourself in
NEW Microstick II Review - Microchip

05/12/2011
For some time now we have had the Microchip Microstick that I reviewed back in December 2010. Its a great little product and one I have used in anger over and over again when trying out new ideas. The
Multitasking on a small scale

26/06/2011
- Memory
- PIC
- Programming
- Test
Multitasking sound like one of them grand things that only big 32bit micro’s do, right? Wrong! I want to talk about using multitasking methods in small micros like on a 8bit machine.
DesignSpark at Electronica 2010

08/11/2010
This week, DesignSpark is at Electronica, the daddy of electronics exhibitions! We’ll be on the RS stand in Hall A4, stand 117, demonstrating the range of design resources available on DesignS
Review of TAUTIC Boards

29/09/2011
TAUTIC Electronics LCC is owned and run by Jayson Tautic and specializes in Prototyping, design tools and gadgets for electronics design. Jayson is a popular figure in the social network and is often
LeoStick Dev Kit Review - The Tiny Arduino Clone

07/05/2012
- 740
- Analogue
- Arduino
- Development Kits - Electronics
- Interconnect
- PIC
- Power
- Programming
- RX
- Solder
- Test
- USB (Universal Serial Bus)
So there are lots of development boards out now. And since the introduction of the Arduino there are lots of clones around too which is good in my view. So this is what I have to say is the smallest d
What is VHDL.?

06/12/2010
BLOG UPDATED-!VHDL or “very-high-speed integrated circuits hardware description language” must have one of the longest names going in the world or electronics, however as suggested it’s a langua
A Practical intro to programming an open source SoC

30/03/2012
A post-event report from Open Source Hardware User Group meeting No. 17.At the seventeenth OSHUG meeting we were given an introduction to the practicalities of programming your own open source system-
FTDI Morph-IC-II FPGA Development Module - Review

09/08/2011
Among the low cost FPGA development tools sits one name that we are all familiar with. FTDI who are well known for their range of interface chips, from USB to just about anything they are true a leade
DesignSpark PCB workshop with Renesas Analog and Power Device Product team

03/07/2012
In June, RS components had conducted two DesignSpark PCB workshops to the engineers of Renesas's Analog and Power Device Product team in Shanghai and ShenZhen, China.During these two workshops, we sha