Kit puts PowerPC to the applications test

Applied Micro Circuits Corp has released a low-cost, easy-to-use evaluation kit for its PowerPC 440EP processor.

Applied Micro Circuits Corp has released a low-cost, easy-to-use evaluation kit for its PowerPC 440EP processor.

To accelerate customers' system development time, AMCC's 440EP kit provides users with a comprehensive set of resources including a custom-designed evaluation board, industry-standard software development tools, sample applications, system-level benchmarks and hardware design files.

The kit allows customers first to perform a comprehensive evaluation of the 440EP processor and then to use the base hardware/software design as a starting-point for their own product development.

The kit includes an evaluation board, named Yosemite, designed for AMCC by Embedded Planet.

The Yosemite board is configured with the Linux operating system, but also provides the flexibility to load and run other PowerPC-compatible embedded operating systems.

Schematics and layout files for the board are provided so customers can start their designs from a proven baseline.

The board, with a 5 x 7in form factor, includes an AMCC 440EP processor operating at a clock frequency of 533MHz.

Other features include 256Mbyte of SDRAM, 32Mbyte of Flash, two 10/100 Ethernet ports, one USB 2.0 port, two USB 1.0 ports, JTAG connector, trace connector, PCI host connector, Linux (2.6 kernel) in Flash, and Uboot boot firmware in Flash.

Also included in the evaluation kit is a suite of advanced processor and board diagnostics from Kozio, known as kDiagnostics.

This diagnostics package, which can be licensed by customers, performs in-depth testing of the processor and evaluation board.

The resource CD offers a wide range of sample applications that can be used as a starting-point for customers' software development, as well as various utilities to aid in system configuration.

The sample applications include a web server, telnet server, FTP server and example game, and the utilities provide a detailed configuration report on the board and utilities for setting the IP address and MAC ID.

This software is provided to the user as source code as well as executables.

To assist customers in selecting the optimum development environment for their 440EP-based projects, evaluation versions of best-in-class software tools products from DENX Software Engineering, Embedded Toolsmiths, Green Hills Software and LynuxWorks are provided.

The resource CD also contains industry-standard benchmarks for use in processor performance analysis, including TTCP,dBench, Dhrystone, Whetstone, Hint, Stream and MPEG-4.

These benchmarks allow customers to perform a detailed analysis of the 440EP processor's performance using standard metrics without having to acquire and configure the benchmarks themselves.

"AMCC's 440EP evaluation kit is one of the most comprehensive evaluation kits on the market today".

"With these resources in hand, including our custom-designed Yosemite evaluation board, customers' testing and overall development time will be greatly accelerated, helping them get their products to market as quickly as possible", said Matt Hoover, Embedded Planet's Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

"The selection criteria for choosing an embedded processor have shifted".

"Customers are closely examining the breadth of development tools and software support available with each processor".

"Simultaneously, the availability of an evaluation board with reference applications and layout files dramatically advances the customer's development cycle", said Steven Howell, Technical Marketing Manager for Memec Insight.

"AMCC's new 440EP evaluation kit is not only an outstanding kit, offering a wide variety of tools from industry-leading suppliers, but it's a remarkable value".

"We understand the importance of providing the necessary tools that our customers need to jump-start their system development and processor evaluation", said Charlie Ashton, Director of PowerPC Software at AMCC.

"The 440EP evaluation kit serves as a cost-effective means to evaluate the 440EP processor as well as a launch pad for our customers to start the development of their products based on the 440EP".

A similar evaluation kit will be available for AMCC's PowerPC 440GR processor early next quarter.

The 440GR kit will include the same comprehensive set of resources found in the 440EP, plus a Yellowstone evaluation board also designed for AMCC by Embedded Planet.

Both AMCC's easy-to-use 440EP and 440GR evaluation kits are designed for customer setup in 15 minutes or less and is aggressively priced at $750.

The 440EP evaluation kit may be ordered from AMCC using part number EV-440EP-KIT-00.

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