Lpc2000

At 12:57 17-12-2003, you wrote:

>Hi Leon,
>
> > I am thinking of designing a little 4-layer PCB with an LPC2106 and a
>Xilinx
> > Spartan XC2S200 on it, for one or two applications I've got in mind. The
>
>It could be useful, but if you're continuing to develop this as a
>platform, I _personally_ would rather see a single standardized CPU
>board with 100 mil headers, and a variety of mezzanines available to
>plug directly onto those headers. I.e. build up, not out. Also it means
>you can keep the boards 2-layer where possible, to save cost.

  Our "ARMermelator" project aims toward that. The main board consists of 
an AT91 processor, Flash memory, SRAM and an XC2S50E/XC2S100E FPGA, all in 
a 3"x2" format board. All IO pins of the MCU and FPGA are shared and 
exported through two 60-pin 2mm headers, which makes prototyping and module 
insertion easy. For our in-house projects, we are currently designing 
modules with Analog IO, RS232/485, Ethernet, RF, CF, GPS interfaces.

  The board supports stacked modules or can be used with a backbone. For 
that purpose, modules also have an AGP132 edge connector to be inserted in 
this backbone (up to 14 modules). Modules are automatically recognized at 
powerup by the main board through a simple serial interface.

  We considered Philips ARM MCUs for the main board, but the lack of an 
external bus in the current devices was very limiting, specially if you 
want to plug cheap modules with memory mapped interfaces. We are planning 
to design some modules with the Philips MCUs, though. I hope the MCUs with 
an external memory interface are available soon. Does anyone know if they 
will have RAM controllers?

  We are also planning to offer our board as a kit (main board + JTAG 
programmer + prototyping module) for something between US$150~US$200. Since 
all FPGA pins are exported, the board also can be used as an FPGA kit if 
the processor is not soldered in. Would anyone be interested in buying 
something like that? The idea would be to put up a site where people can 
share their code, designs, etc. Something like an ARM-based open-source ZWorld.

  We are open to ideas... Cheers!