Silicon vendor AMCC is readying an inexpensive evaluation kit for its PowerPC 405EZ processor, which targets networked industrial computing devices. The 405EZ Kit includes a 7 x 7-inch “Acadia” board pre-installed with a 2.6-based Denx embedded Linux implementation, along with tools, board schematics, sample programs, and benchmarks.

The Acadia eval board was designed for AMCC by Embedded Planet. It is based on a 416MHz version of AMCC's 405EZ processor, which clocks from 104MHz to 416MHz. The board includes 256MB of SDRAM, along with 64MB of NOR flash and 8MB of NAND flash.

Input/output interfaces include an 10/100 Ethernet port, two USB 1.1 host ports, one USB 1.1 device port, two CAN 2.0 fieldbus ports, two serial ports, A-to-D and D-to-A channels, and JTAG and Trace ports.

The Acadia board ships with a 2.6 Linux kernel and open source U-Boot boot firmware assembled by Denx Software Engineering, and pre-programmed in flash so that set-up takes only 15 minutes, AMCC said. Alternatively, users may load and run other PowerPC-compatible embedded operating systems.

Additional kit components are said to include software development tools, sample applications, system-level benchmarks, and hardware design files. Also bundled is an unlicensed copy of Kozio's kDiagnostics, described as “a suite of advanced processor and board diagnostics.”

Matt Hoover, Embedded Planet VP of marketing, stated, “The AMCC Acadia kit follows the strong example set by the prior AMCC evaluation kits: a proven, high-quality hardware reference design backed by complete software support from boot loader through operating system. If a customer needs more customization, AMCC's development partners are well up the learning curve on the product.”

Charlie Ashton, director of software at AMCC, expects “405EZ customers [to] be able to [use this kit to] move quickly through the evaluation phase, start their hardware design based on a proven baseline, and start their software development before their own target hardware is ready.”

Availability

The Acadia 405EZ Kit (EV-KIT-405EZ-01) will ship in May, with a suggested list price of $750, AMCC said.

Other previously-released AMCC evaluation kits include the Taihu 405EP, Yosemite 440EP, Sequoia 440EPx, Yellowstone 440GR, Rainier 440GRx, Taishan 440GX kit, and Katmai 440SPe.

 
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