Novel Prototyping Development Board (Source-Era) for an Encompassing Software/Hardware Production

Abstract

In programming and reprogramming of a controller, a setup known as Prototyping platform is required, and three things are involved: Software IDE to write the code, hardware development board to transfer the code and the prototype components to assemble and test the work. Prototyping platforms give software/hardware developers a platform to ease the design and implementation of complete electronic solutions that lead to quality products. To encourage an increase in numbers of developers and thus products, such platforms must meet the requirements of ease of use, expandability and cost which most existing platforms lack. The need for cost effective development board that is robust, expandable and ease of use informed this work. The introduction of Novel Prototyping Development Board (Source-Era), is a big boost to software/hardware production. The board explores microcontrollers such as PIC18F873, PIC16F876, dsPIC, ATMEGA328A and more without changing the development board or performing any soldering activities. It also has the ability of interfacing a controller with different input and output device based on their signal type which include Universal Asynchronous Receive and Transmit (UART) Protocol, Serial Peripheral Interfacing (SPI) Protocol, Inter Integrated Chip (IIC or I2C) protocol, Analog signal processing protocol (ASP), Boolean Digital, Pulse width Modulation (PWM).