AVR ONE! on sale for US$199 + freight - and cheap AVR32 dev boards too

[andyg]

Hi guys,

I thought some of you guys might be interested that on the official Atmel store, the debugger/tracer/programmer AVR ONE! is on sale at US$199 (normally ~$600, or $1300 at Element 14 Australia, WTF?!)

http://store.atmel.com/PartDetail.aspx?q=p:10500055

It costs $35 freight to Australia, I just brought one

Also picked up a dev board EVK1100 for sale at $49 (normally $180 or something) for AVR32 development.

http://store.atmel.com/PartDetail.aspx?q=p:10500064

Andy

[TerminalJack505]

That's a really good deal.  I wonder if they're going to rev the board or something and so they're trying to clear out old stock?

Thanks for the heads-up.  I don't need one since I have the JTAGICE mkII but at that price I might have to pick one up.

[Sal Ammoniac]

That's a really good deal.  I wonder if they're going to rev the board or something and so they're trying to clear out old stock?

Or maybe discontinue it.

[Mint.]

Wow that price difference is amazing! However I am not sure if I really need it that much, even if its very heavily discounted.

[olsenn]

Can anyone tell me if there are any advantages of this device over the AVR Dragon for use with their 8-bit microcontrollers (Atmega/Atiny)? I know the AVR32 has Nexus Trace etc, but besides that what does this beast do?

[olsenn]

image hosting gif

Doesn't look too bad; I love FPGA's!

[andyg]

Can anyone tell me if there are any advantages of this device over the AVR Dragon for use with their 8-bit microcontrollers (Atmega/Atiny)? I know the AVR32 has Nexus Trace etc, but besides that what does this beast do?

One thing i noticed on Atmel's web site other than the AVR32 stuff is the programming speed, XMEGA programming via JTAG, 256kB upload in 60s on Dragon, 8s on One. (for ref: 30s for JTAG Ice Mk II, 14s for JTAGICE3)

[Bored@Work]

Or maybe discontinue it.

Atmel says they aren't discontinuing it. But Atmel has been known in the past for not always exactly telling the truth.

[fmaimon]

According to this post on AVRFreaks, its just a "test of the discount functionality of the web-store". Later on the topic, someone said that it will also be supporting Atmel´s ARM chips.

[olsenn]

Just ordered one; no pun intended. I hope this thing doesn't just end up sitting on my desk collecting dust

[olsenn]

I just received my AVR ONE! and thought I'd share my initial thoughts of the device:

The main device (the big silver box) appears to be quite well built; it is smaller but heavier than I anticipated, which is nice. However, the plastic connector (probe) that comes attached to it seems like it will be quite easy to break; the torque of the JTAG/ISP adapter when pushed was alone enough to cause the black plastic female header to fall off (wasn't a problem putting it back on). I'm not sure this will last very long, and since it is required to perform level conversions and costs 100 dollars to replace, if it goes, I'm SOL. Drivers installed automatically in Windows 7, and AVR Studio 6 had no problem connecting to the device. JTAG and ISCP programming is fast and reliable, but I notice now that HV Programming is not supported by the AVR ONE!, so I will need to hold on to my AVR Dragon afterall. I have yet to try out the Nexus trace functionality, but I'll revise this review when I do.

All in all, I think the AVR ONE! is a nice device, but it's definately a shame that level conversions aren't performed in the body of the device and a simple ribbon cable could be used to connect to the target. Furthermore, unless ALL programming modes are supported (which they aren't) I would have to say that the AVR ONE fails to live up to its name of being ONE device to do everything.