Lpc2000

My 2p worth :-)

If you go for the LPC2888 or similar

---

* Consider multi-footprinting the PCB (or connectorize) for different MMC/SD card interfaces

* Consider sticking a USB-based battery recharging circuit on it to enable true demo of battery-based operation - always a nice touch.

* Since many people often use demo/eval boards for quick prototyping - consider if some "pretty" external case/box to enclose the eval board can be made available at a low cost - useful to cleanly "box" the eval board for end user demo's - e.g. customers may also cut holes to hang LCD screens, buttons, connectors, LED's or touch sensors etc etc.  One could create a family of eval boards with similar board profiles and have as extras - a set of pre-moulded cases to encase potential customer prototypes - this might make it attractive to customers wondering how they will eventually present concept demos to 3rd parties without expending effort on their own custom box or a lash-up standard catalog box.   Alternatively, make the eval/demo board actually fit some well-known brand of prototype case/box!  Also helps protect any hand-soldered wires/circuitry in prototype areas from damage when transporting or moving eval/demo boards.  Prototypes/experimental test boards will often have lots of loose wires :-)

* Allow any peripheral/memory add-ons which are supplied as "built onto" the board to be easily "removeable" - for example by clear and accessible places marked to cut tracks etc  - I have spent many a time with eval boards "removing" "unwanted" components (like eval boards with 5 different non-volatile memory options (FLASH, EEPROM etc etc).

* Provide an easy place to monitor board power consumption of different peripherals and (for example) the processor alone etc.  E.g. incorporate test links which can be removed so one can measure the approximate "power consumption" of the processor without including (for example) the RS232 drivers/transeiver chips.  Sometimes people like to check (approximate) processor consumption at different modes/frequencies of operation etc.  It's going to be approximate since the pins will be waggling other peripherals and/or be waggled by external peripherals etc.

* If expansion connectors are provided to get hold of lots of I/O pins etc - please don't make the connectors some ridiculously highly-priced ultra high density ones.  On certain DSP eval boards I've used these are extortionate - especially if you only want to hook to 2 or 3 lines.

* Have plenty of nice big ground (0V) test pins/loops/points all over the board - for oscilloscope ground clips to clip to.  People will often be wanting to look at signals on the boards with scope probes and need something big enough to clip those pesky ground clips to!

* If space permits - provide a white silkscreen "label" patch (area) near to I/O pin breakouts/connectors etc - so people can just write on these areas with a permanent pen - so I can label physical pins with my own "logical" signal names.   For example, I might want to write "Audio IN" on a pin connected to an A/D convertor or I might want to write "SYNC" on an output I/O pin I've configured as a sync output.  It just makes life easier for people to develop and debug boards with.

* Consider adding a footprint for or an actual capacitive or other touch sensor interface (e.g. Synaptics) - because it's "cool" :-)

---

Plenty more ideas... but it's a start towards my dream eval/demo board :-)

Cheers,

-- Alex Butler

alex (-at-) ewinkle (-dot-) com

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Frantz Robinson 
  To: lpc2000@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 4:31 PM
  Subject: [lpc2000] help define a LPC2888 demo board and you can get one free!


  Everyone, 

  I'll try to keep this brief but perhaps a little intro is in order. 

  I am one of the many 'lurkers' on the list quietly learning from all
  your valuable contributions here, but alas I have little time for active
  experimentation so I've been mostly quiet. Having done ARM designs in
  the past, I am of course a huge fan of this architecture and especially
  Philips's incarnation of it.  

  I am an 'X' design engineer, but I find myself now with the
  responsibility to help market these parts for a large global distributor
  (Future) on behalf of Philips. One of the things we try to do here to
  help our customers and train our FAE's in supporting them, is come up
  with unique demo boards for key technologies like the LPC2K, and we have
  been tossing around board concepts for some time, but now that this is
  closer to actual execution I'd like to get your valuable insights to
  help us come up with something truly unique and useful.  There are a lot
  of very good boards available from many sources, so for this to be
  worthwhile, it needs to be sufficiently different from those - no sense
  in re-inventing the wheel. 

  So my question to you is:



  To be most useful to you, how should the demo/eval board be designed;
  what interfaces, peripheral components, external memory if any, form
  factor, etc, etc should it support? 



  What Philips ARM part would you most like to see supported? ( I'm
  proposing LPC2888- do you agree? )



  How would you use this board ? (what invention / design would it allow
  you to create?)



  To make this worthwhile, I will take all your submissions and draw 5
  winners who will receive the resulting board for free, courtesy of
  Future Electronics and Philips. 



  Thank you 



  Best Regards



  Frantz Robinson,

  Technical Marketing Manager

  Philips Technical Champion
  FUTURE ELECTRONICS INC 
  237 Hymus blvd., Pointe-Claire, Quebec, H9R 5C7 


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