STK500 Expansion Board
From the Atmel Web site, "The Atmel AVR® STK500 is a starter kit and development system for Atmel's AVR Flash microcontrollers". The ECROS Technology STK500 Expansion Board adds two important things that are lacking in the Atmel product:
- a prototyping area
- a JTAG debug interface
The Expansion Board provides a prototyping area of approximately seven-and-a-half square inches. All interesting signals from the STK500 expansion connectors are brought to clearly labeled pads on the left or right sides. There are plenty of connections to power and ground.
If you use an ATmega16 or ATmega32 in the STK500, you can connect to their JTAG ports with the ten-pin header at the left of the Expansion Board. This will give you access to the on-chip debug features of these MCUs. You can connect with the Atmel JTAG ICE, the ECROS Technology AVR ICE-Cube or any other compatible JTAG interface.
New! LCD Version
The LCD Version of the STK500 Expansion Board has all the features of the original and adds a footprint for the 2 line by 16 character LCD used in the Dragon Rider 500 optional LCD Add-on Parts Kit. To make space for the LCD, the area available for prototyping is slightly reduced, but parts can be mounted under the LCD module. The HD44780-type LCD controller is pre-wired in 4-bit mode to Port D, but provision is made for changing this if desired. The read/write control line can be connected to any port bit or, to save an I/O line and simplify software, it can be pulled down and the controller operated in write-only mode. A trimmer potentiometer allows the LCD contrast to be adjusted.
Basic Parts Kit
The optional basic parts kit consists of the following components, which are suitable for mounting either version of the Expansion Board on the Atmel STK500, decoupling the power supply and connecting a JTAG on-chip debug interface to ATmega16/32 microcontrolers:
- 2 x 30-pin headers to mate with EXPAND0 and EXPAND1 on the STK500
- 1 x 10-pin header for the JTAG on-chip debug interface
- 2 x 0.1µF ceramic and 1 x 47µF electrolytic capacitors for decoupling
LCD Parts Kit
The optional LCD parts kit is identical to the Dragon Rider 500 LCD Add-on Parts Kit.
More Information
Click this button for technical details
on both versions of the STK500 Expansion Board.
Click this button for additional technical details
on the LCD version of the STK500 Expansion Board.
No Longer Available For Purchase
The ECROS Technology has closed down and the STK500 Expansion Board is no longer available for purchase. These pages are maintained for the benefit of existing owners.