{"id":3536,"date":"2012-08-20T08:59:10","date_gmt":"2012-08-20T07:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/?p=3536"},"modified":"2012-08-20T08:59:10","modified_gmt":"2012-08-20T07:59:10","slug":"evaluation-boards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.stage.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/2012\/08\/20\/evaluation-boards\/","title":{"rendered":"Evaluation boards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just about all the embedded CPU manufacturers produce evaluation boards employing their devices with a suitable selection of peripherals.These boards are generally offered at a very reasonable price and are readily available, along with good software support from vendors like Mentor Embedded<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, what use are these boards to the embedded developer, who may be looking at the design of custom hardware? …<\/p>\n

The primary intention of an evaluation board is indicated by its name: it is a means for developers to evaluate a CPU in a realistic context [clock speed, memory configuration, peripherals etc.]. As such, these boards are ideal. However, there are number of other possible uses to which they might be put:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. They can provide a convenient and realistic execution environment for software developers to use while they await the availability of prototype hardware.<\/li>\n
  2. The design specs for evaluation boards are often readily [and freely] available, which can make them a good basis for a custom design. This ties in very well with #1.<\/li>\n
  3. For low volume applications, the evaluation board itself might be deployed, thus avoiding the need to develop any custom hardware at all.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The biggest benefit of evaluation boards to the embedded developer is quite subtle. They address one of the biggest challenges of embedded software development, compared with desktop computer programming: every PC is essentially the same, so programming one is a well-trodden path; whereas every embedded system is different and may be entirely unique. [Although I call this a challenge, IMHO it is one of the things that make embedded software development interesting.] An evaluation board is almost the best of both worlds: it is very standard, so programming should be straightforward and well supported; it is also very close to an embedded design.<\/p>\n

    Because these boards are shipped in large quantities, it is worthwhile for the major embedded software development tools and OS vendors [like Mentor Embedded] to provide extensive support. Indeed, a recent announcement<\/a> illustrated our commitment to this approach. One of the key features of Nucleus ReadyStart<\/a> is the ability to be up and running on [known] target hardware in minutes. A full list of evaluation boards that we support may be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Just about all the embedded CPU manufacturers produce evaluation boards employing their devices with a suitable selection of peripherals.These boards…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71677,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[300,482,304,374,483,309],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-embedded-software","tag-evaluation-boards","tag-nucleus","tag-nucleus-os","tag-nucleus-readystart","tag-rtos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stage.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stage.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stage.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stage.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stage.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stage.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stage.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stage.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stage.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3536"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stage.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=3536"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stage.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=3536"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stage.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}