Hi All,
I am working on a series of development boards for XS2 series MCUs. I am for them to be well under $100 and as flexible as possible.
I have a sort of universal "port" header that each board will feature, depending on the number of cores and a few other things. It is designed to break out _every_ pin on the xCORE port in a logical and easy-to-use way.
The upper left side header breaks out port 16A and 16B, as well as all the "sub" 8- and 4- bit ports. 1-bit ports in this group are also labelled. It is designed to accommodate a 40-pin ribbon cable if desired. There is a ground pin for every 4-bit port.
The right side headers break out the standalone 1-bit ports and a few power pins. It is designed to accommodate a 16-pin ribbon cable if desired. There is a ground pin for every 1-bit port.
All in all, this should be very easy to understand and use, with individual jumper wires, "4-wide" jumper wires, "5-wide" jumper wires (if you want to include ground), and also larger ribbon cables. It could also accommodate "wing" type daughter boards that only cover or "hang off" part of the whole header.
The lower left side header would only be present if the xCORE chip on board has port 32A fully bonded out. Some of these port 32A pins are always "shared" with some from port 16A, so the red traces show that.
I am posting this here mainly to solicit any feedback anyone has on the design!
Universal "XPort" header for XS2 development board
Good looking layout.
I would think about adding connections for system reset and maybe buffered output from the main oscillator feeding the MCU. The reset would be important for starting certain peripherals in a known state. For reference you could check out header designs from the older SliceKit development system. They used "PCI-express x1" style connectors.
I would think about adding connections for system reset and maybe buffered output from the main oscillator feeding the MCU. The reset would be important for starting certain peripherals in a known state. For reference you could check out header designs from the older SliceKit development system. They used "PCI-express x1" style connectors.