Jeffrey's Log

BlueBoard LPC1768 Header board review

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Above shown is a BlueBoard LPC1768 header board. I got this board from NGX technologies. This board contains an ARM cortex M3 based LPC1768 microcontroller from NXP (Philips). NGX technologies has similar ARM development boards which can be purchased from their webshop.

NGX technologies BlueBoard LPC1768 header board is of size 95mm x 55mm size. It has an power connector to connect DC power. The board can also be powered using its mini USB port. It also contains an LED and a switch(other than the rest switch) for basic operation. All the pins of the controller can be accessed through the header pin port. It also contains an JTAG port for debugging the ARM microcontroller. There is also an EEPROM chip to store information which is independent of the power.

The greatest advantage of this board is that it can be flashed using its USB port. There is no seperate flashing tool hardware or software needed. Just plug the board into the USB port and press a button sequence. The board will appear as an mass storage device(like our USB pen drives). The compiled bin just has to be pasted into the drive. Once the reset button is pressed, the new compiled software will start to work. More information can be found from here.

These type of header boards are really helpful when you want to prototype your designs. Its really hard for a newbie or even time consuming for an expert to design a PCB for the microcontroller and then start development. This board contains all the basic circuit to bring up the microcontroller and start development.

Some useful links
1) Google code page(contains complete source code and hardware design): http://code.google.com/p/blueboard-lpc1768/
2) Product page(Contains more information about this products and various tools): http://shop.ngxtechnologies.com/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=65
3) Documents form NXP for LPC1768: http://ics.nxp.com/support/documents/microcontrollers/?scope=LPC1768