Arrow Electronics has launched a new hardware and software bundle based on the BeagleBoard-xM in the EMEA region that brings together a high-performance Texas Instruments ARM Cortex-A8 processor and the latest Windows Embedded real-time operating system. Potential applications for the BeagleBoard-xM Evaluation Bundle range from robotics and Web kiosks to home media centres, gaming platforms and three dimensional user interfaces. In addition to the tools themselves, developers can benefit from the collective knowledge and experience of the well-established BeagleBoard-xM community through access to online groups, forums and blogs.
Based around the established BeagleBoard-xM platform, Arrow's Beagle Board-xM Evaluation Bundle combines BeagleBoard-xM hardware, a choice of Windows Embedded Compact 7 or Windows Embedded CE 6.0 operating systems, and access to other components to speed development of industrial and multimedia embedded designs. Within the bundle, Arrow is also providing a SanDisk 1GB microSD card, an HDMI-to-DVI-I cable and an Emerson wall adapter power module. Arrow's BeagleBoard-xM Evaluation Bundle incorporates a compact BeagleBoard-xM hardware based on a Texas Instruments DM3730 ARM Cortex-A8 processor running at 1GHz and featuring 512MB of on-board LPDDR RAM. The board can be powered via USB or the external supply and is ready to connect to an external LCD. Support for a broad mix of connectivity options includes 10/100 Ethernet, USB 2.0 HS OTG, I2C, I2S, SPI and RS-232. SD and MicroSD interfaces allow for the connection of memory cards, while DVI-D, S-Video and stereo in and out functionality and a camera port simplify evaluation of multimedia designs. Designed for ‘out-of-box' evaluation and development, the BeagleBoard-xM Evaluation Bundle comes with a Windows Embedded Compact 7 binary image running on the board, and a 180-day evaluation version of Microsoft Platform Builder.
