2009-11-06

AVR32 development on Linux

by Forrest Sheng Bao http://forrest.bao.googlepages.com
I have to say that ATMEL is the most Linux-friendly company among all MCU/DSP makers in the world, followed by TI. Both TI and ATMEL use tons of open source toolchains so Linux zealots can build their apps on Linux.
I learned how to play with AVR 8-bit instruction set when I was an undergraduate. Now, I am gonna use AVR32, which is a 32-bit instruction set.
Here is some good information:
AVR32 32-bit MCU - Tools & Software: http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/tools.asp?family_id=682#1443
ATEVK1100 development kit: http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/tools_card.asp?tool_id=4114 only $129
AVR32 Studio: http://www.atmel.com/dyn/Products/tools_card.asp?tool_id=4116 IDE on Linux, better than TI's solution
And, ATMEL has a tool chain, buildroot, to build Linux OS targetting AVR32 MCU. It says a very funny sentence on their website: Buildroot will not run under Windows. Atmel recommends beginners to use Ubuntu Linux, available from www.ubuntu.com.

2 comments:

Catskul said...

No longer true. They've regressed and removed all trace of their linux programming tools, and made it hard for the community to support their programming hardware (e.g. jtagice3).

Forrest Bao said...

I noticed the same problem. Luckily, now we have Arduino to use.