原创 Take a look at a low-cost 32-Bit PSoC 4 Dev Board

I just received an email from a reader, Betajet, posing an interesting problem:

Hey Max, if a major semiconductor company offered a 32-bit development board for $4.00, you'd think that was pretty big news, right? Well, by happenstance, two days ago I discovered these CY8CKIT-049 4xxx Prototyping Kits for the PSoC 4 from Cypress Semiconductor.

The PSoC 4 is a nice little chip, and previously the cheapest development board was the $25 PSoC 4 Pioneer Kit. Take a look at these $4 boards: they have a break-away USB serial interface for programming and DIP I/O holes for use in a breadboard. These have got to cost a lot more than $4.00 to make and distribute, so clearly Cypress is losing money on the board to try to get more people to check out the PSoC 4.

So here's my question: why is such an obviously nifty board getting virtually no publicity? The Cypress documentation has been around since at least February and it's well stocked at Mouser and Digi-Key.

A puzzle. Seems like a nice little board. Thought you'd be interested.

Well, I must admit to being intrigued. Betajet poses an interesting question. Why is an obviously nifty board getting virtually no publicity? Maybe it's a conspiracy. Hang on. Since I haven't reported about this before, maybe I am part of that conspiracy.

Of course, there is a simpler explanation, which is the fact that no one told me about such a board. As Betajet says, he ran across this board by accident, and he's very knowledgeable about... well, just about everything, now that I think about it.

The PSoC 4 is a very clever little device that boasts a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 processor core running at up to 48 MHz, up to 32 kB of flash and 4 kB of SRAM, programmable analog and programmable digital fabric, and CapSense Touch Sensing technology.

Off the top of my head, I don't recall seeing anything like this snap-off USB connector. My understanding is that you can program and reprogram the device using your PC; then, when you are ready to rock and roll, you can snap off the programming end and embed the business end of the stick in your product.

At only $4, these are an incredible bargain, and we all need to snap some of these up while the snapping is good.