Kanda - AVR Development and AVR Training with AVR Dragon STK200 STK300 AVR Board

Introduction to AVR Development

Kanda supply a range of AVR development and training kits, AVR programmers and emulators for learning about AVR programming and developing projects using the AVR microcontroller. There are various options depending on your budget and experience, and this guide helps you choose the right AVR development kit for you.

Kanda AVR development kits are all based on AVRStudo development environment, which is the PC software for writing code in assembly language or C and compiling it. It also includes a simulator for basic testing of your code.

Once the code is written, it needs to be programmed into the target AVR, either to run it or debug it further using an emulator or ICE (to step through code on target). AVR development is much easier if you have known hardware, so our kits include an AVR board with sockets and peripherals such as LEDs, switches and serial port.

Choice of AVR Board
The two AVR boards are

STK200: AVR Board for 8, 20, 28 and 40-pin AVR microcontrollers
STK300: AVR Board for 64-pin mounted AVR microcontrollers

Unless you have a specific project in mind that requires lots of pins and extra memory, the STK200 AVR board is the best for most people to start with.

Once you have selected your basic AVR board, STK200 or STK300, then your next choice is programmer or emulator or both.

Which AVR Programmer or Emulator Do You Need?

There are basically 3 hardware choices for AVR programming and debugging, depending on the target AVR microcontroller and your budget:

AVRISP: USB In system programmer (ISP) with its own software (but linked to AVRStudio when required) for programming all AVR microcontrollers. Debugging is on AVRStudio Simulator.
AVR JTAGICE: In Circuit Emulator using JTAG Port, runs from AVRStudio software, with limited device support
AVR DRAGON: ISP and Emulator in one package. It is a bare board, but Kanda supply all leads and adpters required. Runs from AVRStudio and has ISP, JTAG and DebugWire (for emulating smaller AVR devices)

USB AVR ISP, AVR JTAGICE and AVR DRAGON are available separately if you already have a board, see links at bottom of page.

So which AVR Development kit should you choose?

All the kits include AVRStudio, C compiler, sample code, schematics, instructions and books on CD to get you up and running with AVR development. So, whatever your choice of AVR board and ISP or ICE, you have all the information you need to get going with AVR microcontrollers.

SK200 and STK300: Basic low cost kits with USB AVR ISP programmer. Debug via Simulator
STK200ICE and STK300ICE: Includes USB AVR ISP programmer and USB AVR JTAG ICE. Limited number of devices can be used with emulator but it also includes AVR ISP, so you can program all devices without using AVR Studio
STK200-DRAGON and STK300-DRAGON : Includes AVR DRAGON which is an ISP and Emulator for nearly all AVR devices. It can only run from AVRStudio

Details of each AVR Development kit

	STK200	STK200ICE	STK200 DRAGON	STK300	STK300ICE	STK300 DRAGON
AVR Board	STK200	STK200	STK200	STK300	STK300	STK300
Programmer	AVRISP-U	AVRISP-U	AVR DRAGON	AVRISP-U	AVRISP-U	AVR DRAGON
Emulator	None	JTAG ICE	AVR DRAGON	None	JTAG ICE	AVR DRAGON
AVR Included	ATmega8515	ATmega16	ATmega16	ATmega128	ATmega128	ATmega128
ISP Support	All AVR except 90S	All AVR except 90S	All AVR except 90S	All AVR except 90S	All AVR except 90S	All AVR except 90S
ICE Support	None	(1)JTAG ICE support	All AVR with DebugWire or JTAG	None	(1)JTAG ICE support	All AVR with DebugWire or JTAG
Socket Support	8, 20, 28 and 40-pin AVR	8, 20, 28 and 40-pin AVR	8, 20, 28 and 40-pin AVR	64-pin AVR	64-pin AVR	64-pin AVR