PULPino open-source IOT microcontroller

PULPino is state-of-the-art 32-bit open-source microcontroller like system, based on a small RI5CY, an optimized 32-bit RISC-V core that was developed at ETH Zurich and University at Bologna. Many of the ideas are developed through research on ultra-low-power parallel processing (PULP project). Programming environment and even the bitstream for the ZEDboard are free and open under the Solderpad license.

The PULPino source code is available on github, see https://github.com/pulp-platform/pulpino

Low-Power, but Powerful
To allow embedded operating systems such as FreeRTOS to run, a subset of the privileged specification is supported. Moreover, PULPino comes with many of the low-power features we developed in the PULP Project: when the core is idle, the platform can be put into a low power mode, where only a simple event unit is active and everything else is clock-gated and consumes minimal power (leakage). A specialized event unit wakes up the core in case an event/interrupt arrives.

A Rich Set of I/O Peripherals
For communication with the outside world, PULPino contains a broad set of peripherals, including I2S, I2C, SPI and UART. The platform internal devices can be accessed from outside via JTAG and SPI, which allows pre-loading RAMs with executable code. In standalone mode, the platform boots from an internal boot ROM and loads its program from an external SPI flash.

More information on PULPino and PULP see our websites: http://pulp.ethz.ch and http://www-micrel.deis.unibo.it/pulp-project/