Microchip Internet Radio Demonstration Board
June 23rd, 2009 by Jeff
Microchip Technology, makers of the PIC microcontroller, have released a demo board for the 8-bit PIC18F67J60 that is pre-programmed to function as an internet radio receiver.
Anyone familiar with the blog knows that I have a special love for internet streaming radio, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that this demo board immediate caught my eye.
The demo board’s features include ethernet, a dedicated MP3 decoder IC, pushbutton user interface, and a cool OLED matrix display. The PIC18F67J60 includes an ethernet PHY on-chip, which makes for a very simple way to add network connectivity to the microcontroller. Sadly, unlike my usual hacking platform, there isn’t any wireless on-board, but given the extremely small size and downloadable source code, I am really tempted to get one of these to play with.
Here’s a short video about the board by MicrochipTechnology on YouTube:
Internet Radio Demonstration Board.
Related posts:
- Building a Wifi Radio – Part 9, A Few Odds and Ends
- kuangeleven’s WL-520gU based Wi-Fi Radio & LCD Display
- Gary’s Wifi Radio Project
- Building a Wifi Radio – Part 10, Building the Box
- ESC Beagle Board Class Wrapup
Tags: ethernet, Microchip, microcontroller, pic, PIC18F67J60, wifiradio
I wonder if they have the firmware available for download? Seems like you could homebrew your own for much less with WiFi capability.
Sure, the code’s available and is distributed as sample code with their TCP/IP stack. There’s an AppNote that describes the project on their website and includes schematics.
Theoretically you could turn the board and use a ZeroG wireless module in place of the on-chip PHY and it’d be wireless. The stack supports the ZeroG as of a month or two ago. Since it’s “just” a demo board, it is exactly what it is, except for the fact that you can, of course, re-flash the code with whatever you want. There aren’t too many degrees of freedom with this board otherwise. It’s not a full-fledged development board.
It’s also using an 8-bit processor, so it doesn’t have the headroom that the Jeff-O-Matic has though. Still impressive though. Mahogany extra.