Future Technology Magazine - Cypress Semiconductor: New Cypress PSoC® FirstTouch™ Embedded Design Starter Kit Packs Multiple Sensing and Control Applications into Tiny Space

New Cypress PSoC® FirstTouch™ Embedded Design Starter Kit Packs Multiple Sensing and Control Applications into Tiny Space

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The Cypress PSoC® FirstTouch™ Embedded Design Starter Kit integrates the Cypress CapSense capacitive touch, temperature, ambient light and proximity sensing into USB thumbdrive form-factor. A detachable expansion module enables designers to plug “PSoC Powered Peripherals” into their own system instantly.

Cypress Semiconductor has introduced the PSoC® FirstTouch™ Starter Kit, a USB thumbdrive-sized kit that showcases the integration, flexibility and real mixed-signal programmability of PSoC Mixed-Signal arrays. The kit comes loaded with complete application examples for quick and easy “out-of-the-box” evaluation of Cypress CapSense touch, proximity, temperature and ambient light sensing. Using this breakthrough Cypress PSoC Express visual embedded design tool, engineers can experiment with more designs available on www.cypress.com/FirstTouch, or design their own “PSoC Powered Peripherals” and have real world mixed-signal applications running in minutes with this ultra-flexible PSoC® FirstTouch™ design kit.

The PSoC® FirstTouch™ kit’s USB interface dongle “bridge” connects the pluggable multi-function expansion card with various PC applications that program, control and communicate with it. Once programmed, the multi-function expansion card, with its dedicated host PSoC device and four analog/digital GPIO pins, can operate either detached from the bridge standalone or plugged into target system hardware. Designers requiring a deeper level of customization can also configure the complete set of PSoC analog and digital peripherals (amplifiers, ADCs, DACs, filters, comparators, timers, counters, PWMs, SPI, UART, etc.) to their system’s specifications.

FEATURES

Touch, light, temperature and proximity sensors
Red, green, blue triple LED cluster
Audible magnet transducer and speaker
Four unused A/D GPIO lines for user functions
I²C, SPI and ISSP support
Convenient, USB-thumbdrive format
16-pin connection interface to plug the expansion board into target boards
Cypress MiniProg programmer interface
Easy-to-use application examples
PSoC Express software included

APPLICATIONS


CapSense touch buttons CapSense 7-element touch sliders CapSense proximity detection Ambient light-level detection Thermistor-based temperature measurements General system management and control

Introduction to PSoC: Using PSoC Express and the PSoC FirstTouch Starter Kit

This introductory online module will give you the background needed for the PSoC Mixed-Signal Array which will enable you to complete and understand PSoC.

To view the training module, click here. (34MB)

You must have Flash Player 6,0,79 or later
Supported browsers: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.X" or greater, Netscape 4.7 or 7.x, Firefox 1.x, AOL 8, and Opera 7.11
After the file has been saved, open the executable file. Leave all the default settings as they are and click on "Unzip"
Open "My Computer" and click on "C:"
Under the new folder "CYU Courses", find the folder that matches the course title
Open the course folder and click on the HTML file to launch the course. For example, "psocexpress1.html".

Design Examples

Design examples using the PSoC® FirstTouch™ Starter Kit are the fastest way to learn. See what our factory Applications Engineers have created in specific, easy-to-read, heavily commented example projects.

Please click on the corresponding design example link below to get the project zip file on your computer. Then, unzip this file onto your computer. From PSoC Express, you can open the design example by selecting the "*.app" file within ../ {project folder name} / {project folder name}. Follow the instructions in the PSoC FirstTouch Guide to get the design example operating on your PSoC FirstTouch Starter Kit.

CapSense Touch Sensing LED Color Design controls 3 LED colors depending on a finger's position on the CapSense Touch Sensing slider.
Temperature Sensing LED Color Mixer Buzzer Design controls many LED colors and buzzer based on ambient temperature variation.
Light Sensing LED Intensity Design control 1 LED color intensity based on ambient light variation.
CapSense Proximity Sensing LED Color Design controls 2 LED colors based on a hand's proximity to proximity sensor.
CapSense Touch Sensing LED Color Design with PC GUI control 3 LED colors just like in the 1st example but this time see the LED color vary on your PC as well. (Double click on CSDText.exe within "../CY3270_CSI²C/CY3270_CSI²C" to run the PC GUI).
CapSense Touch Sensing LED Intensity Design control 1 LED color intensity depending on a finger's position on the CapSense Touch Sensing Slider.
CapSense Touch Sensing LED Color Mixer Design control many LED colors depending on a finger's position on the CapSense Touch Sensing Slider.
Light Sensing Buzzer Design control buzzer based on ambient light variation.
Light Sensing Buzzer Frequency Design control buzzer frequency based on ambient light variation.

PSoC Express™

Visual Embedded System Design Tool

PSoC Express™ 3.0 is the most powerful visual embedded development environment on the market. Complete with design, simulation, device programming and real-time hardware debugging in one easy-to-use software tool, PSoC Express 3.0 takes your product from concept to final production in weeks instead of months.

PSoC Express 3.0 now supports the following programmable products from Cypress:

PSoC® Mixed-Signal Arrays
EZ-Color™ HB LED Controllers
CapSense™ Touch Sensitive Controllers
Wireless USB™ LP Radio-on-a-Chip

Breaking News! Express Pak 3 is available NOW!

Express Pak 3 includes the contents of Express Pak 1 plus fixes critical defects. See the release notes on the Express Pak 3 page for more details.

Downloads

For full capability, you need to install the following:

PSoC Express 3.0 (60MB)
Download and install Express Pak 3 for critical bug fixes (6MB)
PSoC Programmer 2.31.0.4 (6.6MB)

Support Documentation

PSoC Express 3.0 Release Notes

Featured Products

Part Number		Description	Data Sheet	App. Notes
CY3203A-CAPSENSE		CapSense Development Tool
CY3210-PSOCEVAL1		Evaluation Board and Miniprogramming Unit
CY3213A-CAPSENSE		CapSense Development Tool
CY3214-PSOCEVALUSB		PSoC Evaluation Kit for CY8C24794-24LFXI
CY3215-DK		Complete PSoC Development and Evaluation Kit
CY3217		PSoC MiniProg Programmer and USB 2.0 Cable – for Development and Prototyping
CY3270		PSoC® FirstTouch™ - The Ultimate Starter Kit

refers to New Product Introduction