Product category:
Design and Development Hardware
News Release from: Cypress Semiconductor | Subject: PSoC Express V3
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 21 August 2007
Tool simplifies embedded design
PSoc Express allows designers to monitor application data via an I2C to USB bridge connected to a target board.
Cypress Semiconductor has released Version 3.0 of PSoC Express, a visual embedded system design tool for PSoC mixed-signal arrays that dramatically simplifies embedded design The new release delivers real-time monitoring and tuning of designs, allowing designers to observe and improve the performance of designs with Cypress' CapSense touch sensing and EZ-colour High-Brightness LED (HB-LED) control solutions
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 9 Jul 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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Designers can now monitor application data via an I2C to USB bridge connected to a target board.
PSoC Express acquires and logs the data and enables users to select variables, set sample rates, and watch updated variable values in real-time.
Then, with the target board still running, the tuner allows users to adjust configurations and tune system performance.
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Customers can see a flash demo and download this software for free on the Cypress website.
They can also test the new features with Cypress' CapSense Touch Sensing Evaluation Kit (CY3203A-CapSense) and EZ-colour HB-LED Evaluation Kit (CY3261A-RGB).
"We have taken embedded design to a new level with this release", said Jon Pearson, product Marketing Director for PSoC Design Tools at Cypress.
"Not only can designers use the automatic code generation of PSoC Express, now they can also tune designs on-the-fly, saving even more precious time".
In addition to the new monitoring and tuning functionality, PSoC Express 3.0 also boasts a new user interface with the look and feel of Microsoft's Visual Studio.
It enables flexible window docking, drag and drop placement of drivers and easy window switching.
The new version also includes new functional drivers, including support for high-brightness LEDs, a new wireless driver and an LCD driver.
PSoC Express is the first easy to use development tool that allows system engineers to develop microcontroller-based designs without any assembly language or C programming.
By operating at a higher level of abstraction and not requiring firmware development, PSoC Express enables new designs to be created, simulated and programmed to the targeted PSoC device in hours or days instead of in weeks or months.
With built-in support for portability, seamless multi-processing, design visualisation and a rich content library, designs can be created faster and with higher reliability using PSoC Express.
With PSoC Express, designers work within their areas of application expertise, defining a custom solution by choosing input and output devices from a catalogue, and then logically linking them to define system behaviour.
For example, a user can select temperature sensors, voltage inputs, fans, LEDs, and then define temperature regions for fan operation, voltage monitor thresholds and "sequence-on" logic.
Within PSoC Express the designer is able to verify designs through simulation, then generate and download the device-programming file.
The tool allows users to target the design to any of Cypress' PSoC devices.
It also creates customised project documentation including a datasheet with a register map, interface schematics, and a bill of materials.
Without writing any microcontroller code, designers implement reliable, custom applications faster than they can write the requirements.
PSoC devices employ a highly configurable system-on-chip architecture for embedded control design, offering a flash-based equivalent of a field-programmable ASIC without lead-time or NRE penalties.
PSoC devices integrate configurable analogue and digital circuits, controlled by an on-chip microcontroller, providing both enhanced design revision capability and component count savings.
They include up to 32Kbyte of Flash memory, 2Kbyte of SRAM, an 8 x 8 multiplier with 32-bit accumulator, power and sleep monitoring circuits, and hardware I2C communications.
The flexible PSoC resources allow designers to future-proof their products by enabling firmware-based changes during design, validation, production, and in the field.
The PSoC flexibility shortens design cycle time and allows for late-breaking feature enhancements.
All PSoC devices are also dynamically reconfigurable, enabling designers to morph internal resources on-the-fly, using fewer components to perform a given task.
Easy to use development tools enable designers to select configurable library elements for analogue functions such as amplifiers, ADCs, DACs, filters and comparators and digital functions such as timers, counters, PWMs, SPI and UARTs.
The PSoC family's analogue features include rail-to-rail inputs, programmable gain amplifiers and up to 14-bit ADCs with exceptionally low noise, input leakage and voltage offset.
A single PSoC device can integrate as many as 100 peripheral functions saving customers design time, board space and power consumption while improving system quality.
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