AMICUS: PIC18F25K20 (Amicus18) Based Eval Board for Microchip's PIC18F25K20

Denny — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 05:41:32 GMT

Current Revision posted to Documents by Denny on 10/27/2013 5:41:32 AM

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Development Tools

Kit Overview

The Amicus18 boardAmicus18 board consists of an 8-bit Microchip PIC® microcontroller with complementary components to facilitate programming and incorporation into other circuits. The board includes both 5-volt and 3-volt linear regulators and a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, thus allowing 16-mips (Million Instructions Per second) operation. The microcontroller used on the Amicus18 is the Microchip PIC18F25K20PIC18F25K20, which has 32768 bytes of flash memory, 1536 bytes of RAM, and operates at 64MHz, which equates to 16 MIPS (Million Instructions per Second). The Amicus18Amicus18 microcontroller is also pre-programmed with a bootloader that simplifies uploading of programs to the on-chip flash memory. Compared to other devices that typically need an external chip programmer, Amicus18Amicus18 can be programmed via a USB cable that also serves as a means of power and communication to the board.

The Amicus18 board exposes all of the microcontroller's I/O pins for use by other circuits, two of which can produce PWM signals, nine can be used as analogue inputs, and there are several built in peripherals such as SPI, I2C and USART. These pins are available on the top of the board, via female 2.5mm (0.1 inch) headers. Several plug-in application boards known as "shields" are also available.

The Amicus18 Companion ShieldAmicus18 Companion Shield is a PCB that fits over the Amicus18 board and provides extra functionality, such as Ethernet, Motor control, LCD, Smartcard, GPS, GSM etc. This is a PCB laid out in the pattern of a solderless breadboard. The holes are single sided, which means that components can easily be removed using solder mop braid, or a solder vacuum tool, if a mistake is made, or components need to be re-used. Another solution is to add a solderless breadboard to the Companion shield, thus allowing the full re-use of components without the need for a soldering iron. Notice the use of header sockets instead of header pins.

Amicus18Amicus18 is an embedded system platform based on a simple open hardware design for a single-board microcontroller, with embedded I/O support and a standard programming language. The (free) programming language is a version of Crownhill’s Proton BASIC, any PIC® microcontroller language can be used with the Amicus18Amicus18 hardware.

Amicus18Amicus18 can be used to develop stand-alone interactive objects or it can be connected to a host computer. The Amicus18Amicus18 board carries the microcontroller, some digital and analogue I/O lines, and a USB interface to the host (Personal Computer). The host is used for both programming the board, and run-time interaction. Host interfacing is simple, since the host software may be written in a variety of languages. A popular language is Visual BASIC, but other languages that can access the virtual serial connection are Processing, Max/MSP, Pure Data, SuperCollider, ActionScript, Java, Delphi, and of course C++.

Key Applications: Low Power Design, Human Interface, Connectivity, Market Specific.

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Development Tools

Software Development Tools:

Tool Type	Supplier	MPN	Supported Family	Description
IDE	Microchip	MPLAB IDE	PIC/dsPIC	MPLAB IDE for all Microchip platforms. Learn More
RTOS	Micrium	uC/OS III	PIC24, dsPIC33, PIC32 (MIPS)	μC/OS-III is Micrium’s newest RTOS, designed for developers who need to save time on their current and next embedded sytem projects. Using a commercial real-time kernel such as μC/OS-III provides a solid foundation and framework to the design engineer dealing with the growing complexity of embedded designs. Learn More
RTOS	Segger	embOS	PIC18/PIC24F/PIC24H	SEGGER embOS (Real Time Operating System) follows strict, yet efficient coding and documentation standards. embOS is a priority-controlled real time operating system, designed to be used as foundation for the development of embedded real-time applications. Learn More

Tool Type

Supplier

MPN

Supported Family

Description

IDE

Microchip

MPLAB IDE

PIC/dsPIC

MPLAB IDE for all Microchip platforms. Learn More

RTOS

Micrium

uC/OS III

PIC24, dsPIC33, PIC32 (MIPS)

μC/OS-III is Micrium’s newest RTOS, designed for developers who need to save time on their current and next embedded sytem projects. Using a commercial real-time kernel such as μC/OS-III provides a solid foundation and framework to the design engineer dealing with the growing complexity of embedded designs. Learn More

RTOS

Segger

embOS

PIC18/PIC24F/PIC24H

SEGGER embOS (Real Time Operating System) follows strict, yet efficient coding and documentation standards. embOS is a priority-controlled real time operating system, designed to be used as foundation for the development of embedded real-time applications. Learn More

Hardware Development Tools:

Tool Type	Supplier	MPN	Supported Family	Description
Debuggers, Emulators & JTAG Tools	Microchip	DV244005DV244005	PIC/dsPIC	MPLAB REAL ICE In-Circuit-Emulator
Debuggers, Emulators & JTAG Tools	Microchip	DV164035DV164035	PIC/dsPIC	MPLAB ICD 3 In-Circuit-Debugger
Debuggers, Emulators & JTAG Tools	Microchip	PG164130PG164130	PIC/dsPIC	MPLAB PICkit 3 Debugger Programmer

Technical Documents

Learning Center

Type	Description
User Guide	Amicus: Proton Amicus18 Compiler Basic Language Overview
User Manual	Amicus: Hardware User Manual
User Manual	Amicus: Compiler with MPLab® IDE
User Manual	Amicus: Companion Shield Manual
User Manual	Amicus: Amicus18 Hardware Manual
Datasheet	Microchip: PIC18F25K20 Data Sheet
Application Note	Microchip: AN1095 - Emulating Data EEPROM for PIC18 and PIC24 MCUs and dsPIC DSCs
Revision Note	Microchip: PIC18F25K20 Errata Notes

Design Elements

Type	Description

Video

Video 1	Video 2
www.youtube.com/watch	www.youtube.com/watch

Video 1

Video 2

www.youtube.com/watch

Kit Features

18F25K20 at the core
- 64Mhz operation (equates to 16 million instructions per second)
- 32768 bytes of flash memory
- 1536 bytes of RAM
- Nine 10-bit ADC inputs
- Two 10-bit PWM outputs
- Two comparators
- USART, SPI, I2C
Can be programmed directly with USB cable
Pre-loaded bootloader
3 and 5 volt linear regulators onboard
Free development software (supported by Crownhill, the developers of Proton BASIC)
Not restricted to any one program language (can use C18, Swordfish, anything!)
Interface for all of the microcontroller pins
Lots of shields which expand the Amicus funtionality

Kit Contents

PIC18F25K20PIC18F25K20 Based Eval Board

Tags: amicus18, microchip, amicus18_companion_shield, pic18f25k20, amicus18-companion-shield, pic