Freescale's Freedom Development Platform for Kinetis® L Series MCUs now orderable at element14

LONDON, June 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- element14, the first collaborative community and electronics store for design engineers and electronics enthusiasts and part of global electronics distributor Premier Farnell  (LON:PFL), today announced the supply of the new Freescale Freedom development platform for Kinetis® KL2 32-bit MCUs. Working in close collaboration with Freescale, element14 becomes the first and only distributor to take early orders for the Freescale Freedom development platform.  To make it easy for designers to use this platform, element14 also provides a full ecosystem solution with complete technical data and easy access to design tools and engineering experts.

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The company is first to offer the board on a pre-order basis, allowing designers to secure first access to the newly manufactured boards immediately upon availability in Q3, 2012. The new low-power, ultra affordable development board will allow for quick application prototyping and demonstration of this new technology, which is poised to dramatically transform consumer and industrial applications that currently employ legacy 8- and 16-bit architectures.

The Freescale Freedom development platform is a small, low-power, cost-efficient evaluation and development system for quick application prototyping and demonstration based on the Kinetis L series, the industry's first microcontrollers built on the ARM Cortex-M0+ processor. The development platform combines an industry-standard form factor with a rich set of third-party expansion board options. Using this platform to speed development, applications such as small appliances, gaming accessories, portable medical systems, audio systems, smart meters, lighting and power control, can now leverage 32-bit capabilities and the scalability needed to expand future product lines, all at 8- and 16-bit price and power consumption levels.

"We are delighted to partner with Freescale in the launch of their groundbreaking technology," said David Shen, Chief Technical Officer, element14. "By combining the Freescale Kinetis Freedom development platform with the technical data and tools designers need, element14 provides users with the ideal opportunity to migrate their legacy systems to this 32-bit architecture improving performance without increasing power consumption. Our unique design ecosystem for engineers will make it easy for designers to adopt the Kinetis L series MCUs." 

"Legacy 8- and 16-bit architectures simply can't keep up as the Internet of Things gains traction," said Geoff Lees, vice president and general manager of Freescale's Industrial & Multi-Market MCU business. "As designers move to the enhanced performance, low power, and scalability of the Kinetis 32-bit portfolio, access to the design ecosystem, technical resources and community of engineers from element14 will help speed adoption."

The Freescale Freedom development platform is form-factor compatible with popular third-party hardware designed to work with Arduino™ and Arduino-Compatible boards, providing engineers the "freedom" to connect to a broader range of expansion boards to achieve even greater technological breakthroughs. Access to additional design tools available from Freescale, include Processor Expert® software, and the Kinetis MCU Solution Advisor, plus all the detailed information necessary to perform new evaluations using the development system, are also available at the knode on element14.

element14 is displaying the Freescale Freedom hardware at its booth during Freescale's annual technology forum, FTF Americas, June 18-21 in San Antonio, Texas.  The development platform will also be center stage in an upcoming Webinar series at the element14 community, featuring how-to sessions and technical support for real-world applications and design environments.

About element14

Launched in June 2009, element14 is the first information portal, collaborative community and electronics store specifically built for electronic design engineers. The community recently unveiled its element14 knode, a unique automated platform that enables engineers to quickly research, design, develop and prototype in a single, intelligent environment. element14 is an innovative offering from Premier Farnell plc (LSE:pfl), FTSE 250, a leader in multi-channel electronics distribution trading throughout Europe (Farnell), the Americas (Newark) and Asia Pacific (element14). The company had group sales of GBP990.8m and underlying profits of GBP93.3m last year.

About Premier Farnell

Premier Farnell plc (LSE:pfl) is a global leader in high service distribution of technology products and solutions for electronic system design, maintenance and repair. Its differentiated proposition includes 29 local language transactional websites, and the critically important element14 Community for design engineers – an industry first (www.element14.com). With sales last year of GBP973.1m and underlying profits of GBP104.6m the Group distributes its comprehensive portfolio of products and services throughout Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, supported by a global supply chain and an inventory profile developed to anticipate and meet its customers' needs.

While global in scope, Premier Farnell recognises the individual needs of each market and has continued to internationalise its model accordingly. It trades locally as Farnell in Europe, Newark/element14 in North America and Farnell Newark in Brazil. Across Asia Pacific the business trades as element14.

Key Facts

• Operations in 35 different countries
• 4,100 employees
• Over 2 million customer contacts in 156 industries
• Over 400,000 products stocked with access to over four million more on demand
• Global leader in legislation RoHS, WEEE, REACH

For more information visit the website at Premier Farnell.

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Or contact:
Email: [email protected]

Global Contact:

Ken Leitch
Global Head of PR
Premier Farnell plc
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7851 4145
E-mail: [email protected]

European Contact:
Aakriti Kaushik
European PR Manager
Farnell element14
Tel: +44 (0) 113 279 0101
Email: [email protected]

APAC Contact:
Christina Loh
Communications APAC
Tel: +65 6671 8769
E-mail: [email protected]

Americas Contact:
Janice Fleisher
Communications Americas
Tel: +001 (1) 773 907 5941
Email: [email protected]

SOURCE element14