Installing the IDE
The board can be programmed using the Arduino IDE or Cypress PSoC Creator IDE. For use with the Arduino IDE it is necessary to ensure that the appropriate extension package is installed by the Board Manager and the version of the Arduino IDE you are using is 1.6.4 or later. The CY8C5888AXI-LP096 processor in the FreeSoC2 PSoC® 5LP will also require the Arduino bootloader to be resident for operation with the Arduino IDE.
Operation via the Cypress PSoC Creator IDE makes full use of the dedicated debug processor for program download and also provides some very powerful debugging features for firmware development. These files can also be exported for use by other 3rd party IDEs such as IAR Embedded Workbench®, ARM® Microcontroller Development Kit, and Eclipse™ systems. Details of installing the board in the Arduino IDE and also installation of the PSoC Creator IDE on a Windows PC are given in this excellent Sparkfun tutorial. In the limited space I have available for this review it seems pointless to repeat the information.

The Cypress chip advantage

The real star of the show is the Cypress CY8C5888AXI-LP096 which features a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 core plus DMA controller and digital filter processor with a clock rate of up to 80 MHz. This has the same core in the Atmel SAM chip used for the Arduino Due board but the Cypress chip has the advantage of a whole host of configurable analog and digital peripheral blocks integrated on-chip as well as the processor core and memory. Powerful graphical configuration tools in the IDE allow as many as 100 digital and analog peripheral functions to be configured in a single PSoC chip using drag and drop tools. Connections between the functions and I/O pins are all defined in software. It’s like having a processor and 100 peripheral functions built up on breadboards sitting on your bench but instead of patching the signals between the functional blocks with flying leads, It's all contained inside the PSoC and routed by the Creator development environment.
Pin names assigned to signals in the hardware blocks provide access from the program C code developed and debugged in the Creator IDE. The hardware is of course completely reconfigurable and reusable so a different application can be realized without the need to plug in a soldering iron or move a jumper.
Also included on the board is an additional processor dedicated to debugging functions and programming from the PSoC Creator IDE. This chip is a CY8C5868LTI LP039 which is also a PSoC but has a smaller 68 QFN outline with fewer I/Os.

Taking a first look

The best way to gain confidence and become acquainted with a new environment such as the PSoC Creator IDE is to experiment with an example program you know has already been tested. PSoC Creator thankfully comes with an impressive selection of examples, just click on File along the header menu and scroll down to the bottom to find WaveDAC8_Example and click on Create Project, the project will be installed and you will be presented with a Cypress .pdf document describing it. This can be closed and you will see the .cydwr window of PSoC Creator showing the chip layout and pin assignment. The part number of the chip will most probably be the controller type CY8C3866AXI which is loaded by default. Go to Project in the header menu and scroll down to Device Selector click on Series to check CY8C58LP and uncheck any others. Now scroll down and select CY8C5888AXI-LP096. This should take you back to the .cydwr window which now shows the correct part number. Only one I/O pin is used in this example and it is listed on the right panel showing the port pin allocations.