Direct Insight is shipping an embedded Linux development kit for a tiny SBC (single-board computer) based on an ARM920T processor. The kit includes a Cogent Computer Systems CSB637, pre-installed with Linux, along with a carrier board, tools, and optional JTAG debugger.

(Click for larger view of Cogent CSB637)

Direct Insight says its development kit, along with the Cogent CSB637 SBC, can free developers from risks of dealing with micro-BGA, blind-via, and 5-mil-trace PC board technologies. The kit targets intelligent front panels, building controllers, medical life signs monitors, and industrial Ethernet-to-machine bridges.

Cogent CSB637

The CSB637 is the newest small SBC from Cogent. It measures 1.75 x 2.5 (63.5 x 44.5mm), and is based on an Atmel AT91RM9200, a low-power SoC (system-on-chip) with an ARM920T core that Atmel says delivers 200 MIPS (millions of instructions per second) performance.

CSB637, back view
(Click to enlarge)
The Atmel SoC includes 16KB each of instruction and data cache memories, 16KB of SRAM, and 128KB of ROM. An external memory bus includes SDRAM, burst Flash, and static memory controllers. The SoC also includes a variety of on-chip peripheral interfaces.

The Cogent board supplements the Atmel microcontroller's functionality, according to Direct Insight, offering interfaces that include 10/100 Ethernet MAC and PHY, USB, Dual SDIO, 4 UARTs, SSI, SPI, and CompactFlash Interfaces, an onboard LCD/CRT Controller. Also included are 64MB SDRAM and 8MB flash memory and an “efficient” 3.3V Regulator.

Cogent's CSB637 includes a low-profile carrier board connector
Microcross GX-Linux

The Direct Insight development kit also includes Microcross GX-Linux, a new Linux development environment that comes with a BSP (board support package) for the CSB637.

GX-Linux also includes Microcross's Visual X-Tools IDE, the GNU X-Tools distribution of GCC toolchain with Visual GDB and GDB Server.

Additionally, GX-Linux comes with a 2.6.x kernel, shared and static uClibc libraries for embedded development, support for ROM or remote NFS filesystems, busybox utilities, and Linux drivers including support for I2C, serial I/O, USB host, SD/MMC, TCP/Ethernet, CompactFlash, and real-time clock.

Availability

The Direct Insight development kit is available now, priced at £1,750, including support. A JTAG emulator from EPI is optionally available.

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