Cypress Semiconductor are offering the CY8CKIT-049-41XX development board which contains a 32-bit CORTEX-M0 48 MHz ARM processor for just $4.00 (£2.62 in the UK). The board is quite basic but offers a full-speed USB to serial bridge controller chip on a snap-off portion of the PCB to allow for bootloading the target PSoC device and communication with the board via a computer’s USB port. Software tools for the kit include the PSoC Creator and EZ-USB Software Development Kit (SDK).

The kit supports either a 3.3 or 5 V supply voltage and the device can be programmed using the bootloader or the Cypress MiniProg3 programmer. Cypress Semiconductor are marketing these ready-to-run kits as an alternative to supplying device samples.

The board also includes CMOD and CTANK capacitors to enable CapSense development, an SAR A/D bypass capacitor to enable high frequency sampling, power and user LEDs for visual feedback and a push button for user input and to trigger the bootloading procedure. Two rows of 22-way header pin connectors (at standard 100-mil spacing) provide access for the GPIOs.