Some friends of ours at EagleSoC just launched a Kickstarter project for their cool PSoC 5LP-based development boards. These boards are a lower cost alternative to the Cypress Development Kits (CY8CKIT-001 and CY8CKIT-050) and provide plenty of functionality, with good analog performance, in a range of form factors.
The flagship product is the EagleSoC Development Board which uses a 100-pin PSoC 5LP device in a 75mm×135mm form factor. The board is designed to support mixed signal design by splitting the analog and digital pins into separate sections with their own ground planes. With each analog pin having its own ground you get improved accuracy due to separate return-ground paths. The board can be powered at a range of voltage levels and includes 3A voltage regulators for safe operation. You also get two external crystal oscillators – at 24MHz and 32.768kHz - plus an extra slot for a user-provided oscillator.
EagleSoC Development Board - Top View
The EagleSoC Mini Board is a smaller (60mm×100mm), lower cost version of the Development Board, with a 68-pin PSoC 5LP. If price is a factor for you, and you do not require high current sensors, LCD display connector, tracing port and USB-to-Serial device, then this is a great choice.
Finally, there is the EagleSoC Programmer board which provides a low cost programming/debugging link for PSoC Creator to any PSoC 3, PSoC 4 or PSoC 5LP device.
Backing up these boards is a useful library of software interfaces to PSoC components called EZ-PSoC LIB for PSoC 5LP. By adding this library to your PSoC Creator project you get simplified access to a growing range of sensors, communication devices, and application objects. EZ-PSoC LIB saves you from implementing the interfaces to external hardware without compromising your ability to design the ideal system using PSoC Creator.
Architecture of EZ-PSoC LIB
We think this is a cool project, with robust products (tested in California State University at Los Angeles research projects and undergraduate classes), and we recommend checking out their page on Kickstarter. There are a range of sponsorship options - from thank you notes and T-shirts to complete packages of development board and programmer so, hopefully, some readers will contribute to another PSoC success story. I’ll be keeping an eye on the project over the next 30 days and I’ll keep you up to date on progress.