Abstract
This chapter presents several factors that are needed to be considered when making general microcontroller selection: (1) The device should be available for anonymous online or catalog ordering in single-piece quantity from at least one major distributor; (2) Full datasheets for the device should be available without requiring a non-disclosure agreement or committing to any kind of purchase; and (3) There should be a direct technical contact available at the chip vendor, at least for emergency issues; it should not be necessary to route all questions through distribution. Several factors that need to be considered when choosing the right core and when selecting the development hardware are also discussed. Architectures based around the high-end x86 family offer some immediate advantages such as allowing the use of almost any PC-compatible operating system and free software development tools, and availability of highly integrated mainboards with many possible combinations of peripherals, in a wide variety of form factors. The chapter also discusses building custom peripherals with FPGAs. The Atmel AT91EB40 evaluation board based around the AT91R40807 microcontroller offers several features such as 128Kbyte of flash memory and 512Kbyte of SRAM. Several equipments that are recommended for a laboratory include expensive specialized hardware—storage oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and in-circuit emulators.
Published Version
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