Have a Question About the Freescale Freedom Development Platform?

I just got an eMail from Newark via their obsolescence tracker:

Discontinued Product #1:
========================

Manufacturer Name: FREESCALE SEMICONDUCTOR
Manufacturer Part Number: FREEDOM-KL25Z
Manufacturer Discontinued Date: 08/24/12                     
Newark Sku: 05W3395
Link to Part Detail: http://www.newark.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?SKU=05W3395&N=0&CMP=EMC-BT1450497330
Last Time You Purchased this item: 08/07/12                     
Customer PO: xxxxx
Inventory Available: 0

Product Description: KINETIS KL2 FREEDOM BOARD; Silicon Manufacturer:Freescale; Core Architecture:ARM; Core Sub-Architecture:Cortex - M0+; Silicon Core Number:MKL2; Silicon Family Name:Kinetis - KL2; Kit Contents:Board only

What's up with that?

It appears to be their way of retiring the pre-order part number,   Mmmkay?

The new part number is indicated below.  Yea, I wondered the same thing.

But, I didn't have to ask.

Price For:  1 Each

Minimum Order Quantity: 1

Order Multiple Quantity: 1

Price:     $12.95     

Hello Bill

I confirm billabott answer, FREEDOM-KL25Z was the part-number provided by Freescale to register the pre-orders before official launch September 25th.

Final part-number will be FRDM-KL25Z.

May be you have already noticed that the FRDM-KL25Z has little differences with the FREEDOM-KL25Z : pcb color moved from white to black and some connectors were not populated but the features of the board stay UNCHANGED.

Hello Bill

I confirm billabott answer, FREEDOM-KL25Z was the part-number provided by Freescale to register the pre-orders before official launch September 25th.

Final part-number will be FRDM-KL25Z.

May be you have already noticed that the FRDM-KL25Z has little differences with the FREEDOM-KL25Z : pcb color moved from white to black and some connectors were not populated but the features of the board stay UNCHANGED.

That's good.  Thanks for the reply.  But the question remains: will any of the preordered items come as advertised?  I am betting that only the unpopulated black version is be distributed by Farnell/Newark/element14.  Can you find out how many of the fully populated white version were manufactured and distributed.  I will be so thrilled if my delivery includes white ones as long as they have no defects.

Hi Billabott.

I will confirm the answer and post back here asap, but I'm pretty sure that only the black version is available.

S

Hello Bill,

The white version of the Freescale Freedom development platform was reserved for an internal use as it embeds a prototype version of the silicon KL25Z128VLK4.

Final version of the Freescale Freedom Hardware with the black pcb, that customer who preordered will receive, will be based on a qualified version of the silicon KL25Z128VLK4.

So even if, it has no defect, white version is not intended for production/sale.

Thanks for sharing that info about the white version of the Freedom board.  I regret digging into the trivia of the production process because I found it annoying when the Rasp-Pi people went that way and now I am doing some of the same.  Just human nature, I guess.