Freescale’s Tower System saves development time and costs through modular reconfigurable hardware that allows you to start fast, finish early and move to your next project without starting over from scratch.
The Tower System is a simple concept. Take basic hardware modules, connect them together and start designing. There are two types of hardware modules, MCU/MPU and peripheral (i.e. serial, memory, LCD, etc.), which plug into backplane “elevator” boards. Through the use of open software and a standardized form factor and signal list, we, along with our customers and our partners, can continually design new modules to meet your design requirements. These new modules, in addition to the MCF51CN module available now, can be used for future product development.
The elevator boards have high-density, high-performance but low-cost PCI Express card-edge connectors for up to four modular boards. In addition, the elevator boards provide:
- Common serial and expansion bus signals
- Power regulation circuitry
- Standardized signal assignments
- Two expansion connectors for outward facing cards, such as an LCD module
The MCU/MPU modules are designed to work standalone or as part of the Tower System and feature:
- Basic user interfaces (buttons, DIP switches, LEDs, potentiometers, etc.)
- Sensor or other useful demonstration circuitry
- Debug interface via new OSBDM
- Power and debug through a single USB connector
Peripheral modules have also been developed for serial connectors, memory options, graphical LCDs and others. These modules and elevator boards combine to make a constantly evolving development system that will serve additional controllers, processors and peripherals to save you time and money through rapid prototyping and tool re-use for any number of projects.
With the Tower System, you can elevate your design to the next level, now and in the future.
