Electronics-Lab.com Blog

SC-CPU SolderCore Main Board is a complete development platform consisting of an Arduino form-factor microcontroller “CPU” board with a new and exciting software development environment called CoreBASIC. The SC-CPU SolderCore Main Board features a TI LM359D92 Cortex-M3 processor capable of running at clock speeds of up to 80MHz and provides a compact, flexible solution for rapid product development. SolderCore is compatible with a large range of third party plug-in PCBs to expand its capabilities.

Specifications:

• 80MHz ARM Cortex-M3 processor
• 512kB of flash
• 96kB of RAM
• 20 user-programmable I/O pins + 6 power pins; can be programmed to perform alternative functions including
  I2C, SPI, UART, PWM, CCP, ADC, QEI, and CAN
• 10/100Mbit Ethernet port
• Micro-AB USB On-The-Go connector
• Spring-loaded microSD card holder
• 2.2mm barrel jack for power supply, 6 – 9V; reverse polarity protected
• Standard Cortex 10-pin JTAG connector
• Two power indicator LEDs
• Five user programmable LEDs
• Reset button

SolderCore CPU with Interactive and Internet-enabled CoreBASIC Interpreter - [Link]

Veronica @ blondihacks, we are loving her site! – [via]

Now for something a little different. I was first exposed to computers back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Suffice it to say, placing my hands on the keyboard of an Apple //+ was a watershed moment which pretty much set the course of my life from that point on. The heart of the Apple // was the 6502 microprocessor. I learned to program on that chip, along with millions of other people. It was the chip that brought computers and video games to hundreds of millions of homes and schools, and I think it’s safe to say that it sparked a revolution. The world was ready for personal computers, but all the contemporary CPU offerings (notably from Intel, AMD, and TI) were very expensive. The 6502 offered all the power of the others, for 1/10th of the price. You could find 6502s in the entire Apple // line (except the GS), the Commodore 64, the Vic-20, the Atari computers (except the ST), the BBC Micro & Acorn, the Atari 2600, the Nintendo Entertainment System, and many others. If you used a personal computer or played a videogame in the 1970s, 1980s, or early 1990s, there’s a very good chance it had a 6502 in it. It was arguably the first RISC chip, and the first to do pipelining. It has a clean, elegant instruction set and gets much more done with a clock cycle than anything else of the era.

Veronica @ blondihacks - [Link]

Interrupts are powerful concept in embedded systems for controlling events in a time-critical environment. Many emergent events, such as power failure and process control, require the CPU to take action immediately. The interrupt mechanism provides a way to force the CPU to divert from normal program execution and take immediate actions.This tutorial first describes the interrupt system in general and then illustrates how it is handled in PIC micrcontrollers.

Interrupts in PIC micrcontrollers - [Link]

Scientists at the University of Glasgow have created an ultra-fast 1,000-core computer processor. The core is the part of a computer’s central processing unit (CPU) which reads and executes instructions. Originally, computers were developed with only one core processor but, today, processors with two, four or even sixteen cores are commonplace. [via]

1,000 cores on one chip – [Link]

A common challenge when working with embedded systems is keeping track of real time. Luckily, most microcontrollers have timers that can be used with a precision quartz crystal — already present for the CPU clock — to keep track of real time. In this video tutorial, we show how you can use the timer interrupts on an ATMega168 chip to make a simple timer. Building off of this, it is possible to make your own reasonably accurate alarm clock, create systems to perform timed automated tasks, or create a multitude of other projects.

Crystal Real Time Clock - [Link]

How to create a temperature controller for a CPU cooling fan (or similar cooling fan for other electronics) only a few bucks and a handful of parts. [via]

Cooling fan temp controller - [Link]

Flylogic Engineering’s Analytical Blog writes:

An 8k FLASH, 512 bytes EEPROM, 512 bytes SRAM CPU operating 1:1 with the external world unlike those Microchip PIC’s we love to write up about .

It’s a 350 nanometer (nm) 3 metal layer device layed out in CMOS. It’s beautiful to say the least; We’ve torn it down and thought we’d blog about it!

ATMEGA88 Teardown - [Link]

PC can display CPU fan speed via simple application. Another option is to go to BIOS menu and read fan speed value. But if you want to have stand alone device that measures CPU cooler fan speed so here it is. It is a PIC16F627 based fan tester with four 7 segment LED displays.

CPU fan sends tachometric pulses via separate wire and can be calculated as RPM. PIC captures and calculates the time by using two timers/counters. One captures pulses and another calculates elapsed time. For instance, by capturing the amount of pulses within the period of 1 second would yield the frequency at which the fan spins, e.g. 60Hz. To convert to RPM it is a simple matter of multiplying the frequency in Hz by 60, which in this case yields to 3600 RPM. Schematic is simple – the most components are used for interfacing LED displays. They are controlled via BCD converter and transistor keys. Fan pulse wire connects directly to PIC pin via pull-up resistor as amplitude of fan pulses is same as PIC power supply – 5V.

Stand alone CPU cooler fan speed tester - [Link]