Atmark Techno

Atmark Techno, Inc. (Head Office: Sapporo Japan, President: Tomohiro Saneyoshi) has commenced shipment of the Armadillo-500 FX Development Set (product ID: A542701-D00Z), an embedded platform which allows for easy development of custom panel computers.

Together with the recent increases of processing power of embedded devices, the use of embedded devices with interactive displays has expanded to include not just mobile devices like karaoke remote controls and POS terminals, but also devices like convenience store information terminals, copy machines and parking meters. However, in contrast to mass produced products like mobile phones and mobile music players, it is not always possible to utilize large developer, financial and time resources in the development of the these devices. Also, requirements such as screen size, the number of buttons and external interfaces can differ greatly depending on the intended purpose of the device. The Armadillo-500 FX Development Set provides a solution to these problems by providing a platform which enables simplified development of a wide range of devices with panel displays.

The Armadillo-500 FX Development Set is composed from the FX Board, which provides core functionality, and an interface expansion board providing various user interfaces. At an easily embeddable size of 60mm x 100mm, the FX Board provides the main functionality required for a panel computer and is based on the tiny Armadillo-500 CPU module which includes the Freescale ARM11 i.MX31 processor, 128MB DDR SDRAM and 32MB of Flash memory. The interface board provides the user interface (LCD, buttons, touch screen) and external interface (USB, Audio, SDHC) portions of the panel computer.

By using the FX Board as is and developing just a custom interface board, the various development requirements of a panel computer can be met in a short period of time.

The Armadillo-500 FX Development Set also has the following features.

• Mobile device friendly design with power consumption at 4W^*1.
• A W-SIM slot for mobile communications.
• 5.7 inch TFT touch screen LCD (VGA, LED backlight).
• A Low power SSD (1GB).
• Schematics included to aid hardware customization.
• Linux supported as the default operating system, with all source code included.

In order to support the creation of a wide range of panel computers, not only is flexibility in hardware customization required, but also a highly usable GUI (Graphical User Interface) that makes full use of the panel display. The Armadillo Series boards offered by Atmark Techno have a long track record of supporting Linux as the default operating system. Armadillo-500 FX follows suit, allowing for the use of open source software resources in application development. Also, the mobile phone software platform "Android" being developed by Google and a number of other companies has now been released as open source software and operates on Linux. Atmark Techno is currently evaluating the use of "Android" as the default platform for Armadillo-500 FX.

The Armadillo-500 FX Development Set is priced at JPY128,100 and began shipping on the 31st of October, 2008.

Product Photo

Features 5.7 inch TFT Touch Panel LCD Freescale i.MX31 128MB DDR SDRAM、32MB Flash Memory USB SSD (1GB) W-SIM Support USB 2.0 High Speed Audio LAN 24 Button Keypad SD/SDIO Slots

About Atmark Techno

Founded in 1997, Atmark Techno, Inc. specializes in both the hardware and software development of embedded systems.

For more information, visit http://www.atmark-techno.com/en

Contact Details

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(*1) When measured with no external devices (W-SIM, SD cards, and USB devices) connected.
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* Product appearance and specifications may change without notice.