AVR Dragon a Low Cost Development Tool for AVR Microcontrollers from Atmel

Atmel announced a low cost ($49) development tool for AVR microcontrollers named AVR Dragon (AVRDRAGON or ATAVRDRAGON). This SDK provide a complete on-chip debugging and programming tool for more than 30 different AVR Flash microcontrollers with up to 32 KB of Flash program memory.

AVR Dragon Development Tool for AVR MCUs

AVR Dragon key features and specification:

• In-System Programming (ISP) 3-wire AVR programming protocol
• JTAG Programming 4-wire IEEE® 1149.1 compliant JTAG interface
• High Voltage Serial Programming
• Parallel Programming
• JTAG debugging Available for devices with up to 32 Kbytes Flash
• DebugWIRE One-wire AVR debugging protocol
• PC communication and power by USB – No external power supply required

AVR Dragon (from www.avrfreak.net)

The AVR Dragon uses the AVR Studio® integrated development environment (IDE) available free of charge from Atmel.

AVR Studio includes a simulator, assembler, and C-compiler and is the software front-end for all Atmel AVR debugging and programming tools. A flexible and secure firmware upgrade feature allows AVR Studio to easily upgrade the AVR Dragon to support new devices free of charge. AVR Studio can be downloaded from:
_http://www.atmel.com/avr.

Other document from Atmel:

AVR Dragon supports all programming modes for the AVR device family. It also includes complete emulation support for devices with 32kB or less Flash memory.

Programming Interfaces:

• In-System Programming
• High Voltage Serial Programming
• Parallel Programming
• JTAG Programming

Emulation Interfaces:

• JTAG
• debugWIRE

The AVR Dragon is USB powered and is capable of sourcing an external target. A prototype area allows simple programming and debugging. The AVR Studio online-help contains a complete list of supported devices.

Pricing and Availability
The AVR Dragon is available today from all of Atmel’s franchised distributors at a suggested retail price of $49. The order code is ATAVRDRAGON.

AVR Dragon official product information can be retrieved at:
_http://www.atmel.com/AVRDRAGON.

You can also follow interesting discussion and review about AVRDragon development tools on avrfreaks.
_http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=39522&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Main source: Atmel, September 18th, 2006