Zilog Announces New Educational Platform and Stackable Application Shields

Milpitas Ca., Biel Switzerland, May 1, 2013 – Zilog, an IXYS Company (Nasdaq “IXYS”) and the legendary pioneer and supplier of MCUs providing solutions for the industrial, telecommunication, automotive and consumer markets, today introduces its new Educational Platform, which includes all of the necessary components and software to allow instructors and students to design with freedom. The Zilog Educational Platform is an electronics development system for learning and teaching at the university level, yet can also serve the needs of students at the high school level.  

The core of the Zilog Educational Platform is Zilog’s Z16F2810 MCU, a16-bit Flash chip based on Zilog’s ZNEO CPU. The Platform’s robust educational capabilities allow students to learn about microcontroller architecture, language programming, wireless communication, analog-to-digital conversion, sensing technologies and security encryption methods; students can also experiment with creating industrial lighting and motor control applications. The Platform can also be configured as a data acquisition and remote control system. It ships with a command shell that allows control of the Platform without the need for additional programming.  

The Zilog Educational Platform is supported by a wide assortment of application shields. These shields are application-specific modules that form part of the larger Zilog Education Solutions system. Each of these shields is designed to teach a specific subject or application, and each is designed to be stackable to allow flexibility for teaching and experimentation. The Educational Platform’s design layout allows students to use it with intuitive ease. For ease of introduction, these shields can be operated directly from the preprogrammed command shell. As a result, the novice engineer can develop a level of familiarity with the concepts behind each stackable shield before tackling the intricacies of in-depth programming.  

“Zilog maintains a strong commitment toward helping the academic engineering community, and we’ll continue to enable the next generations of engineers with our tried-and-true microcontroller solutions – the foundation of many designs that meet today’s creative needs. This best-of-class learning platform is also supported by a series of training courses that educators can use right along with the Platform,” remarked Steve Darrough, Zilog VP of Marketing.  

Zilog’s Educational Platform is now available in the Zilog Store for educators and students, and for designers that need a unique and flexible platform for creating new solutions. For more information, visit www.zilog.com.