When I first started paying attention to In-Circuit Emulators (ICEs), they were >$10K devices, and not a lot of organizations could justify having them. Over the years, they have evolved dramatically: last year, TI sold 50,000 eZ430-F2013 emulators at $20 each, which kind of changed things. This year, TI introduced a complete wireless development kit for its MSP430-series low-power embedded microcontroller, This year, TI introduced a complete wireless development kit for its MSP430-series low-power embedded microcontroller, the eZ430-RF2500, which will be available on October 1st for $49. The device itself breaks into two parts, one holding the computer interface and emulation logic, and the other the target board with the MSP430 and the wireless transceiver and antenna. In addition to the hardware, the kit includes an IDE, a C compiler, an assembler, and lots of examples. Supposedly, you can also use the device as actual end equipment: it’s not limited to run in the emulation environment. Obviously, you won’t substitute a $20 target board for a $0.49 chip in a mass-market product, but for one-off applications that need wireless connectivity it makes a lot of sense.This all sounds very exciting, and maybe a little too good to be true. I’ll let you know what I find out when I get my hands on one. Software Development