Interface chip designer FTDI has teamed up with MikroElektronika for a complete ecosystem of development products to support the FT90X series of 32-bit application-optimised microcontroller units (MCUs), including the first dedicated compiler.
Through these products, which incorporate both hardware and software elements, engineers will be able to harness the full potential of FT90X MCU devices for embedded system designs.
The heart of the ecosystem is the 266mm x 220mm EasyFT90X development board, which has an FT900 MCU, on-board CMOS camera, 3.5-inch 320x240 pixel resolution TFT display with touch screen, a microSD card slot and an array of I/O options that allow it to interface with a variety of different external sensors and other items of hardware.
Also included on this board are a mikroProg Fast USB 2.0 programmer and an in-circuit debugger, plus a range of simple MikroElektronika compiler examples. The board has a power consumption of less than 80mA if peripheral modules are not connected.
Α credit card-sized Clicker 2 board can connect to an ever-expanding variety of different add-on modules called click boards (with over 100 to choose from currently) via its two mikroBUS sockets. As well as an FT90X MCU (preprogrammed with a USB-HID bootloader), the Clicker 2 board includes a USB Mini-B connector, two LED indicators, two configurable pushbuttons alongside 32kHz and 12MHz oscillators.
The mikroC, mikroBasic and mikroPascal compilers fully support the FT90X and are suitable for use with both the EasyFT90X and Clicker 2 boards, as well as for standalone FT90X system designs. These are the first dedicated FT90X compilers on the market. They support more than 500 functions and have more than 150 examples out of the box, making them easy to use.
Finally, mikroProg for FT90X is a fast programmer and hardware debugger for FT90X devices, and it is especially well suited for use together with the compilers.