NEC announces the availability of the 78K0R COOL-IT starter kit, supporting the recently launched 78K0R 16-bit microcontroller family.

COOL-IT! adds to the existing range of microcontroller starter kits from NEC, designed to deliver customers with a complete out-of-the-box experience when selecting an appropriate microcontroller.

The COOL-IT kit includes the 100-pin 78K0R/KG3 device with 256KB of Flash and 12KB of RAM.

Several peripheral functions are also mounted on the board including a 224 segment LCD display with integrated display controller, 4-way mini joystick, DIP switches, potentiometer, buttons, and a prototyping area.

In addition users can program the device through the on-board USB port. The kit also contains a 4KB code limited version of the IAR Embedded Workbench software development tools and several simple demonstration programs.

The 78K0R/Kx3 series of 16-bit microcontrollers deliver a class leading combination of both high performance, and low power consumption. Designers of 8-bit applications can benefit by upgrading to a higher performance microcontroller without significant increases in power consumption.

Designers of existing 16-bit applications can significantly reduce power consumption and therefore increase battery life.

With a range of 44 devices in 64 to 144 pin packages, and 64 KB to 512 KB of SuperFlash® Flash memory designers have the ability to choose the best microcontroller for the job at hand