[Lab Bench Online]
Mobile ARM Development Platform Rocks Right Out Of The Box
William Wong
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ED Online ID #15157 |
March 12, 2007
There is a removable SD/MMC flash card connector on the bottom of the board under the LCD. A 12-mm lithium-ion battery supports the realtime clock. There is no area for an on-board battery for the system, but you could always Vecro one under the board to provide portability. You know the board can be used for portable applications when the box it comes in has more space for the cables than the board itself.
It's The Software Stupid
I really liked Atmel's support CD. The CD is designed to handle the range of Atmel ARM processors and development kits. It boots up in a web browser. The interface is dynamic and has links to CD and web-based files. The CD contains all the software needed to get started with basic system evaluation. Documentation for the chips, boards and software are on the CD as well. A standard Microsoft Windows CE CD is part of the package as well with the Windows CE board support on Atmel's CD.
There is a range of software referenced or found on the CD, including Linux from TimeSys, Microsoft's Windows CE, Green Hills Software's Multi development system and Integrity RTOS, IAR's tool suite, and Keil's uVision 3. The support on the CD varies, depending on the type of kit. For the AT91SAM9261-EK, TimeSys Linux or Microsoft Windows CE will be the primary choices, at least out of the box.
The SmartFlash or MultiFlash software is used to program the on-board flash memory using the serial or USB port. For development support, I flashed the Windows CE or Linux platform and worked on application development using the Ethernet interface at the application level. JTAG debugging is supported, but this requires additional development hardware available from Atmel or third parties, so I didn't take the time to check it out. The JTAG port is easily accessible, but the ETM socket was not installed.
I checked out the system using the Windows CE 5 platform (the disk came with the kit). Flashing the system takes a few minutes, and linking the system via Ethernet takes a little longer. Your mileage may vary, depending on your familiarity with the Windows CE platform tools and Visual Studio tools.
The TimeSys Linux support should be comparable. Their LinuxLink system generates a custom configuration for you, including an Eclipse-based IDE, GNU compiler tools, and support tools for the platform you selected — in this case, the AT91SAM9261-EK.
Keep in mind that the Windows CE and TimeSys Linux are evaluation versions — as are most of the other tools on the CD, with the exception of the Atmel-supplied and platform-specific tools.
Out of the box, the AT91SAM9261-EK provides a quick way to do a basic application level evaluation of the AT91SAM9261. It is possible to roll your own Linux development, but don't waste the time: stick with TimeSys, or Microsoft if you want Windows.
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