Luminary Micro Delivers Low Cost Kit To Match $1 ARM-based Microcontroller

Oct. 31, 2006

Luminary Micro created the first ARM microcontroller for under $1. Now it has packaged a development kit for only $49. The JTAG debugger can also be used with external boards as well. Definitely a bargain for top quality development tools.

William G. Wong

Luminary Micro has pulled off another coup with its $49 EKK-LM3S811 Evaluation Kit (Fig. 1) to follow up its $1 ARM micro (32-Bit ARM MCU Hits One-Dollar Mark ED Online ID 12358). It includes Keil's µVision (EiED Online>> Developing ARMs, ED Online ID 11307) development tools plus the latest ARM RealView C/C++ compiler. This is the same platform used with higher end ARM packages.

I liked the installation CD that included a good web interface with plenty of examples, application notes and documentation. The Keil installation starts with a sample project for the Luminary Micro board so getting up and running takes minutes instead of hours.

The development board is impressive and shows off the features of the LM3S811 Cortex-M3-based Stellaris microcontroller. It incorporates a tiny, bit-mapped LCD display that is more functional than the typical status LEDs on competing products. The board comes with a tiny horizontal-style Asteriods game that uses the LCD and the on-board potentiometer for control of your spaceship. Not a bad demo for real time multimedia support.

The IO pins are accessible via holes on 0.1-in centers so you can solder headers for use with external boards. The designers even included mounting holes so it can be connected securely to another board.

There is also a pin header on one end that is actually a JTAG interface for off-board debugging. It uses the same debugger for the on-board Stellaris microcontroller. Switching between the two is done in software. No need to play with jumpers.

ARM vendors will do well to examine this package closely. It is the wave of the future and this is an excellent example of how to do it right.

Related Links Keil
www.keil.com

Luminary Micro
www.luminarymicro.com

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

You can send press releases for new products for possible coverage on the website. I am also interested in receiving contributed articles for publishing on our website. Use our template and send to me along with a signed release form.

Check out my blog, AltEmbedded on Electronic Design, as well as his latest articles on this site that are listed below.

You can visit my social media via these links:

I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

I still get a hand on software and electronic hardware. Some of this can be found on our Kit Close-Up video series. You can also see me on many of our TechXchange Talk videos. I am interested in a range of projects from robotics to artificial intelligence.