Archive : 25 January 2016 год

Mouser has announced a global agreement with Red Pitaya, manufacturers of the Red Pitaya system, centred on an open-source software development platform for test and measurement applications.

The Red Pitaya product line is designed to help designers learn programming and create designs ranging from simple DIY projects, such as automated lighting and alarm systems, to professional testing equipment. The Red Pitaya board, available as a standalone board or included in the Red Pitaya Starter Kit and Red Pitaya Diagnostic Kit, packs professional-grade measurement tools in a reconfigurable, open-source software platform that is claimed to replace thousands of pounds worth of bench equipment.

The board runs on an FPGA system-on-chip with dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor and includes 512MBytes of RAM and an SD Card slot. The board features two analogue RF inputs with 125MS/s sampling rate and a 14-bit analogue-to-digital converter, two analogue RF outputs with 14-bit digital-to-analogue converter, Ethernet, USB, and two sets of 26-pin extension connectors.

Red Pitaya includes five basic instrument applications, including an oscilloscope and spectrum analyser, available free from the Red Pitaya application marketplace. The board’s connectivity and web interface let users access Red Pitaya functionality from smartphones, tablets, or PCs. Mouser is also offering the Red Pitaya extension module, which adds compatibility with Arduino shields and Seeed Grove connectors for additional sensing capabilities.

Author
Tom Austin-Morgan

Source:  www.newelectronics.co.uk

Renesas has unveiled its RX230 Group of 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUs), which is claimed to offer a combination of high performance with digital signal processing (DSP) and floating point unit (FPU) with low power consumption.

Featuring a 1.8 to 5.5V supply, the RX230 Group is suited for applications that require high processing performance in environments with low current supply capacity as well as the robustness needed in home appliance applications.

Compared to the existing RX231 Group, the RX230 features advances with regard to embedded flash size and feature. This covers the requirements of cost-sensitive industrial and consumer applications that don’t require USB or CAN interfaces in their application design and require 256kBytes Flash or less for their code, at a maximum of 32kBytes embedded RAM.

The RX230 Group can handle high processing loads, such as eliminating noise from digital signals and performing floating-point calculations, by using Renesas’ 32-bit RXv2 CPU core with DSP/FPU operation capabilities. The RXv2 CPU core is said to achieve a performance benchmark score of 4.16CoreMark/MHz with an operating speed of 54MHz. In addition, the RX230 consumes 0.8µA in standby mode, which enables system manufacturers to extend system operation on battery power.

Author
Tom Austin-Morgan

Source:  www.newelectronics.co.uk