LAPIS Semiconductor Co. Ltd., a ROHM Group Company, today introduced its LaPi Development Kit for its latest series of mini low-power microcontroller (MCUs) products. The LAPIS Semiconductor LaPi Development Kit is a comprehensive tool to help accelerate the development and deployment of a wide range of embedded system applications that want to fully leverage the small package, extensive peripheral mix, extended operating voltage and temperature range, and high electrical noise immunity advantages of the LAPIS Semiconductor ML610Q100 Series microcontrollers. These MCUs are designed for applications such as embedded motor control, energy harvesting, sensors and nodes to support the Internet of Things (IoT), audio and speech control, smoke and fire detection, security and access control, battery management, home appliances, lighting control and power monitoring and metering.
This just-added feature-rich kit includes all the code development and debugging software and hardware needed to realize the performance, flexibility and design possibilities that can be achieved with LAPIS Semiconductor’s newest series of mini low-power microcontroller devices. These MCUs are high-performance 8-bit CMOS devices that tout a vast array of built-in peripheral circuitry and feature internal low and high speed oscillators that maximize operations up to 8 MHz (8-MIPS). LAPIS’ latest microcontroller family features a unique 4-stage pipeline that allows for extremely efficient processing of one instruction per clock cycle. This latest series of powerful microcontrollers These designs are well-served by the very small package, low power, broad operating voltage range, high computational performance and dedicated control functions provided by LAPIS Semiconductor’s Mini Low Power Microcontrollers. Another unique feature is that the timing reference circuit is completely integrated within the device, thereby removing the need for an external crystal or other peripheral components.
To allow designers to easily start creating circuits and programs, the LaPi Development Kit routes all I/O pins to a prototyping area on the development board, enabling easy and rapid custom prototyping with convenient access to all of the combined 40 I/O pins of the two microcontrollers (ML610Q111 and ML610Q112) on the board as well as power and ground rails. In addition, there are two universal sockets with common pin functions that allow straightforward interfacing with a customer’s daughter boards or future development boards offered by LAPIS.
These universal sockets are compatible with the GPIO port on Raspberry Pi ® single-board computers, allowing use of already existing high performance peripheral boards. Additionally, the kit features a built-in USB to UART interface to facilitate communication between any computer and the microcontrollers over USB right out of the box. The kit includes a sample project, which provides a PC-based GUI for directly controlling input and output functions on either device. The use of the GUI eliminates the need to write any code for the microcontroller to enable simple IO functions.
“We know from working with our customers that it is critical to help them ease and speed development so they can keep their competitive edge. Our team at LAPIS designed the LaPi Development Kit to specifically simplify the creation of custom add-on boards,†said Carl Schell, designer and application engineer at LAPIS Semiconductor. “The LaPi Development Kit provides a needed complete, low cost, and easy-to-use development tool to evaluate and perform the functions required to smooth application development with our newest low power microcontrollers. And, we are planning future kit enhancements to support additional sensing and monitoring devices offered by ROHM.â€
