XMOS Releases USB-Specific Starter Kit

The xCORE-USB sliceKIT starter kit is based on the most powerful member of the xCORE-USB device family, the 16-core XS1-U16-128. Equipped with an integrated High Speed USB 2.0 PHY, the device supports 480Mbps data rates and USB Audio Class 2. The kit includes a USB sliceCARD with USB A and USB B connectors, delivering a complete embedded processing platform for USB applications.

Compatible with the broad range of existing xCORE sliceKIT products, the new development kit allows designers to address a range of demanding applications including high performance peripherals, audiophile and consumer audio products, sound bars, multi-channel USB audio interfaces, DJ products, USB speakers and protocol conversion and bridging.

“The xCORE-USB family of multicore microcontrollers provides the flexibility, low latency and determinacy required by designers developing USB-enabled applications,” said Paul Neil, VP Product Management, XMOS. “It is vital that developers have an easy route to market, and sliceKIT provides just that, letting you tailor your solution with the exact mix of interfaces and digital processes you need, for a superior USB application.”

Development using the xCORE-USB sliceKIT takes place within the xTIMEcomposer Studio integrated design environment, and uses xSOFTip soft peripherals. This allows developers to employ a unified design flow based on C/C++, of a type that will be familiar to any microcontroller software engineer.

The complete suite of free design tools includes an Eclipse-based integrated design environment, a highly efficient LLVM compiler, debugger, the xSOFTip configuration tool xSOFTip Explorer, a cycle-accurate simulator with waveform view, static timing analyzer, and the xSCOPE high speed in-circuit instrument that provides a virtual logic analyzer for real-time applications.

The xCORE-USB sliceKIT core board features two digital expansion slots that can be populated with I/O extension cards (or ‘slices’), a Mixed Signal slot, and interface for the xTAG debug adapter. XMOS offers a wide variety of I/O slices in addition to the USB sliceCARD, including Ethernet, UART, ADC, LCD graphics and digital audio, allowing designers to rapidly develop, prototype and debug their designs.

The xCORE-USB sliceKIT starter kit is available at a cost of $229 and includes the xCORE-USB core board itself, USB and mixed signal slices, xTAG debug adaptor and power supply. All documentation, xTIMEcomposer development environment and xSOFTip peripheral blocks are available free of charge on PC-Windows, Mac-OS and Linux platforms.