I just received the MSP430 Ultra-Low Power MCUs eZ430-F2013 Development Tool made by Texas Instruments from Newark to Electronic Components for a product road test.

 

This is a complete USB based development tool for about $23.00, that includes all of the required hardware and software to start a MSP430F2013 low power micro-controller project. It features:

• eZ430-F2013 development tool including a USB debugging interface and detachable MSP430F2013 target board
• eZ430-F2013 target board
  • LED indicator
  • 14 user accessible pins
• eZ430 debugging and programming interface
  • Supports development with some 2xx Spy Bi-Wire devices (refer to Table 1-1 in MSP430 Hardware Tools User’s Guide for complete compatibility list)
  • Supports eZ430-T2012 and eZ430-RF2500T target boards
• Removable USB stick enclosure
• Includes IAR Kickstart and Code Composer Studio which include an assembler, linker, source-level debugger and limited C-compiler
• Full documentation on CD-ROM

 

The USB stick comes in an easy to remove case that you pry open at the corner. The MSP430F2013 is mounted on a removable daughter card. The daughter card has test points that allow access to all of the pins of the MSP430F2013.

The MSP430F2013 features:

• Low Supply Voltage Range 1.8 V to 3.6 V
• Ultra-Low Power Consumption
  • Active Mode: 220 µA at 1 MHz, 2.2 V
  • Standby Mode: 0.5 µA
  • Off Mode (RAM Retention): 0.1 µA
• Five Power-Saving Modes
• Ultra-Fast Wake-Up From Standby Mode in Less Than 1 µA
• 16-Bit RISC Architecture, 62.5-ns Instruction Cycle Time
• Basic Clock Module Configurations:
  • Internal Frequencies up to 16 MHz With Four Calibrated Frequencies to ±1%
  • Internal Very Low-Power Low-Frequency Oscillator
  • 32-kHz Crystal
  • External Digital Clock Source
• 16-Bit Timer_A With Two Capture/Compare Registers
• On-Chip Comparator for Analog Signal Compare Function or Slope A/D
  (MSP430F20x1)
• 10-Bit 200-ksps A/D Converter With Internal Reference, Sample-and-Hold,
  and Autoscan (MSP430F20x2)
• 16-Bit Sigma-Delta A/D Converter With Differential PGA Inputs and
  Internal Reference (MSP430F20x3)
• Universal Serial Interface (USI) Supporting SPI and I2C
  (MSP430F20x2 and MSP430F20x3)
• Brownout Detector
• Serial Onboard Programming, No External Programming Voltage Needed,
  Programmable Code Protection by Security Fuse

In the coming weeks we will be testing the development system. We will post some sample code for our project also.