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Starter kit for low power LCD applications

NEC Electronics "SENSE IT!" starter kit, now available from Gleichmann Electronics, is suitable for the development of low power LCD controls for portable measurement devices. The kit is based on a 16bit MCU (microcontroller) of the 78K0R/Lx3 family with 128Kbyte flash and 7Kbyte of RAM. Features of the MCU include low power consumption, with 0.19mA current consumption in active mode at 1MHz, 0.9μA current consumption in halt mode at 32kHz with active calendar timer and 0.37μA current consumption in stop mode. A 12-channel 12bit SAR A/D converter, a 2-channel 12bit D/A converter, three operational amplifiers as well as internal 2.0V and 2.5V voltage references are available for a high performance analog front-end. Additional features include a 12-channel 16bit timer array unit, a selectable internal clock frequency of 1MHz or 8MHz (up to 20MHz is possible with an external clock supply), a two-channel DMA controller, multimaster I2C, a 16 x 16-bit hardware multiplier, a 32/32-bit hardware divider as well as undervoltage detection and power-on reset.

The LCD controller/driver integrated in the MCU can control LCDs either by means of an integrated voltage booster, an internal or external resistor chain or via a capacitive voltage divider. A 400 segment LCD, thermometer, light sensor, voltage meter, buzzer, a five way mini joystick, DIP switches and an audio output for sound and voice output with ADPCM are also integrated on the board. An on-chip debugging or programming of the MCU can be carried out via the USB port provided on the starter kit. Alternatively, the possibility exists to connect the NEC OCD Emulator QB-MINI2 to the board. The starter kit also contains a 16Kbyte code limited version of the IAR Embedded Workbench software development platform as well as several example programs.