Microchip, Digilent intros shields for chipKIT

CHANDLER, USA: Microchip Technology Inc., a provider of microcontroller, analog and Flash-IP solutions, and Digilent Inc., recently announced expanded capabilities for the 32-bit PIC32 micro controller-based chipKIT Development Platform for the Arduino community.

The companies unveiled two shields for the chipKIT platform - the chipKIT Basic I/O and Network Shields. Secondly, new online support resources for the community are now available, including software library support for Ethernet, CAN and USB, as well as an online chipKIT forum and wiki, said a press release.

The shields and online support resources enable users to take advantage of the high-performance, 32-bit PIC microcontroller-based chipKIT development platform to add more features and functionality to their projects, even if they are not engineers.

The chipKIT development platform is a 32-bit Arduino solution that enables hobbyists and academics to easily and inexpensively integrate electronics into their projects, even if they do not have an electronic-engineering background.

The platform consists of two PIC32-based development boards and open-source software that is compatible with the Arduino programming language and development environment, the release added.

The chipKIT hardware is compatible with existing 3.3V Arduino shields and applications, and can be developed using a modified version of the Arduino IDE and existing Arduino resources, such as code examples, libraries, references and tutorials.

The chipKIT Basic I/O Shield (part # TDGL005) announced is compatible with the chipKIT Uno32 and Max32 boards, and offers users simple push buttons, switches, LEDs, I2C EEPROM, I2C temperature sensor, and a 128 x 32 pixel organic LED graphic display. The chipKIT Network Shield (part # TDGL006) enables users to use the chipKIT Max32 development board to implement 10/100 Ethernet, USB OTG and CAN communications.