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What is the purpose of MCB900 ?

I was confused that if I use Philip P89LPC932, how many "hardware" development tools are necessary?
The EPM900 (IDE software is included and upgrade to 8k extension)can use as ICE and programmer.What is the purpose of MCB900 ? is it redundant if I already have EPM900?
When I load application to MCU by EPM900, additional programming adapter is needed?
thanks!

  • The MCB900 is an evaluation board only. It allows you to download programs to the FLASH memory (using FlashMagic from ESA or the Keil EPM900) and it allows you to run programs on the board using the ISD51 in-system debugger. This is a low-cost board that has a prototyping area you can hack on to create an LPC900 application. A standard LPC932 device is used on this board.

    The EPM900 is an in-circuit emulator and device programmer. It allows you to test programs on an LPC900 devices using in-circuit emulation (meaning you plug the EPM900 into your target board's LPC900 socket). It also allows you to program the FLASH memory of LPC900 devices using the parallel programmer mode. It is not as inexpensive as the MCB900 because it includes an LPC bond-out chip for emulation.

    To answer your question, how many "hardware" development tools are necessary?

    That really depends on your requirements and what you already have.

    In actuality, NO HARDWARE DEVELOPMENT TOOLS are absolute required to develop LPC900 applications. The Keil C51 development tools completely simulate the LPC900 target. So, you can test and debug programs using nothing more than the Keil C51 tools. This is true even for the evaluation tools (which are limited to 2K of code) available from this web site.

    The MCB900 lets you play with the LPC932 hardware. You can download programs and run them and you can program the FLASH memory. The MCB900 includes 4K-limited evaluation tools (which are different from the standard evaluation tools available on this web site).

    If you already have licensed the Keil C51 tools, you don't need to worry about the 4K-limited tools. The licensed tools suport all features of the LPC devices.

    If you require an emulator for your LPC900 target hardware, you can get the EPM900. If you do not require an emulator, then you don't need the EPM900.

    An option that you do get with the EPM900 is the possibility to upgrade the 4K-limited tools to an 8K-limited version (which is different from the standard evaluation tools available on this web site). This is ONLY useful if you have note already licensed the Keil C51 tools.

    Hopefully this covers everything in a logical fashion.

    Jon

  • or the Keil EPM900
    Why, oh why, does Keil waste time on such that is available from the specialists in a given field.

    Much better that time could have been used to allow integration in the ISD of a REAL editor (CodeWright) with a REAL C compiler (Keil) followed by a REAL ISD (FlashMagic).

    Erik