The AT91CAP9A development board implements the fixed portion of the AT91CAP9 device as a microcontroller standard product, tightly coupled to a high-density FPGA that represents the MP Block. The board also includes a range of memories and physical interfaces/connectors for the external ports. This configuration enables parallel hardware/software testing of the application under development at close to operational speed, with no penalty for hardware modifications. This significantly reduces the design cycle time and increases confidence in right-first-time silicon and software.