Cypress Announces ARM Cortex-M3/PSoC 5 Design Challenge Winners

Cypress named a total of four category champions (digital, analog, component, and community choice), including the Grand Prize winner. Lipka’s mixed signal scope design also won the “digital” category. In the “analog” category, Kelly Clifford’s (Stow, Massachusetts, USA) use of PSoC 5 to determine the frequency of musical notes earned “Musical Instrument Tuner” the winning spot. From the “component” category, a “PSoC 5 Super Spy Car with Bluetooth Control and Monitoring by Mobile Phone,” by Anastasios Kanakis (Sheffield, United Kingdom), took the top position. The super spy car replaces a handheld remote control with a standard mobile phone by integrating Bluetooth into the PSoC 5 architecture. The “community choice” category encompasses all entries and was voted by members of the Cypress Developer Community™. “Implementing FULL CAN Bus in PSoC 5 for Electric Vehicle Development,” by Hakam Saffour (Magdeburg, Germany), was voted the community choice winner. The design converts the analog signals from the electric vehicle’s gas pedal into digital values.



The design challenge aimed to find the most innovative and useful designs from the millions of possibilities available to designers using the Cypress PSoC 5 architecture powered by the ARM Cortex-M3 processor. A total of over $10,000 in cash and prizes have been awarded throughout the contest. More information about the winner’s designs is available at www.cypress.com/go/challenge.



“The mixed-signal scope combines a full range of analog peripherals, custom PLD logic, CapSense buttons and slider capabilities, with a complex full-function LCD display. It was a great effort to put all of that on one chip,” said T.J. Rodgers, President and CEO of Cypress, and a member of the selection team. “The PSoC in this project integrates 10 discrete components that would cost well over $20.00 if bought separately. Mr. Lipka is certainly a PSoC wizard.”