Vegard Wollan talks AVR chips and tools

While some of my earlier segments with Vegard explored the history of AVR, this video with its co-inventor addresses its product line and the tools one would use to write the firmware for the 8-bit chips.

Vegard touches on the availability of AVR chips in DIP (dual in-line) packages. These larger packages are loved by Makers and hobbyists since they are easy to prototype with. You can solder to the pins without a microscope and it is easy to make changes. They are also well-suited to installing in sockets, so you can replace them, or yank them out and program them in a separate programmer board.

Atmel still makes parts in the older DIP package, loved by hobbyists and Makers alike.

In the interview, Vegard refers to the ball grid array, commonly referred to as BGA by us acronym-loving tech people. BGAs are extremely small, just a little bigger than the silicon die itself. They also tend to transfer heat out of the die effectively, but that is rarely a factor in AVR chips since they are so low power. The headache with BGA chips is that you need an IR reflow oven to solder them on a board. Now, my buddy Wayne Yamaguchi has figured out a toaster oven will get the job done, just don’t toast any bread in it after you put a lead-soldered board into it.

Atmel parts in BGA packages are very small, but take special inspection and rework equipment.

The real headaches with BGA packages are rework and inspection. To replace the chip, you would need a camera mounted hot-air rework station from Metal/OKI; in order to make sure it is soldered correctly would require an X-ray machine (no, I am not kidding) to see that all the balls have sweated onto the pads under the chip. It helps to use gold-immersion finished circuit boards since they tend to be flatter than HASL (hot air solder-leveled) boards. However, if you are making some leading-edge tiny consumer product, all these prototyping and QC hassles are well worth it to get the smallest size possible.

To remove and resolder a BGA on your circuit board, you need to use a high-dollar camera equipped hot-air station like the Metcal Scorpion from Oki.

Vegard confirmed that Atmel uses the AVR 32-bit UC3 core in our touch controllers and mouse controller products. As you will see in the video above, we then went on to discuss Atmel’s legacy of providing really inexpensive demo boards and development tools.

Vegard Wollan smiles with pride as I show him an old demo board I used in 1999.

I also dragged out the actual AVR ICE 200 in-circuit emulator (ICE) I used in 1998, to design a point-of-sale terminal (note I misspeak in the video, calling it an STK200). The remarkable thing was this system would emulate an AVR chip in-circuit, and it only cost 200 dollars, back in an era when Intel Blue-Box 8051 systems were 50 grand.

Vegard Wollan really beams as I describe the 200-dollar Atmel AVR ICE 200, that got my startup off to a fast start in 2001.

To conclude the segment, Vegard Wollan shares how the Atmel Studio 6 integrated development environment is a high-quality software tool to develop your application, and works with AVR 8- and 32-bit parts as well as Atmel ARM-core microcontroller chips. When you add Atmel Gallery, Atmel Spaces, and the Atmel Software Framework (ASF), Atmel Studio becomes an integrated development platform (IDP). And, don’t forget you can get Atmel demo hardware through our distributors or the Atmel Store.

 

Vegard Wollan on AVR Freaks and early data books

In the fourth episode of my interview with Vegard Wollan, the co-inventor of the AVR MCU alluded to the passionate following that Atmel and its 8-bit chip have developed.

I can personally attest to this. When one of my pals said he was “going off the reservation” to solve an AVR problem, I thought he meant he was going to use a certain competitor’s microcontroller. Turns out, he was simply referring that he was headed to Atmel’s AVR Freaks forum to get an answer, rather than put in a support ticket or use our knowledge base. What delighted me was when he said, “I would rather jump off a bridge than use a [competitor] part.” Simple as that.

Atmel recently rolled out a redesigned site for the die-hard community, which incorporates both feedback and testing provided by the users themselves. Aside from the new look, the site will utilize a much more robust infrastructure and web technologies to provide users with an enhanced experience. (For those seeking an avid community built around the Atmel | SMART ARM-based products, you can check out AT91.com.)

What I loved about the interview is how Vegard explained it was his college experience that convinced him of the value of a strong user community. We all remember those 3:00am dorm sessions where we would discuss the meaning of life. Vegard noted that Atmel would provide servers and gifts and anything else we could do to support the user community.

The co-inventor also brought along a few copies of the first AVR data book. I was amused to see this post on the AVR Freaks forum, by a user that did not know what a “data book” was. Boy, that makes me feel old! See sonny, back when the Earth was still cooling and dinosaurs roamed the fields, engineers didn’t do everything at their fingertip on the intertube. Companies, much like Atmel, would take all their datasheets and bind them up in this thing called a printed book. I have to admit, it was a great day when I tossed my 500 pounds of databooks in the dumpster. Bless the Internet, it made life so much better.

Vegard Wollan holds up the draft version of the May 1995 AVR databook.

Of course, that draft was only a checkplot for the real book. The video also shows Vegard holding up the final version of the AVR databook that us old-timers so frequently depended on. How we would have killed for the modern microcontroller selector guide!

Here, Vegard Wollan holds up the actual printed data book from May 1995, the first release of the famous AVR microcontroller to the world. They had to make some changes so this databook has parts listed that Atmel never actually produced, and was missing some other parts. Those 4-months printed book lead times were a killer for everybody.

So there you have it, folks. With billions of chips in the wild, a following of over 290,000 AVR Freaks and nearly 100,000 forum posts around the topic annually, it’s safe to say we’ve come a long way since the earliest days of the 8-bit microcontroller. If you’re not already a member of the growing AVR Freaks community, be sure to head on over to the newly-updated site and join today!

Watch out for those snake robots!

Every engineer loves robots, it’s one of the few disciplines that mechanical, electrical, and software engineers all admire. There is a class of robots called snake robots due to their means of locomotion resembling the way a snake works. One such robot , Wheeko, was recently unveiled by the folks at NTNU, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the self-same place that Vegard Wollen, the inventor of the AVR microcontroller chip, attended before starting at Atmel.

Wheeko, a snake robot developed at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

When I asked a Norwegian co-worker if Wheeko might have Atmel microcontrollers in it, he was not sure about Wheeko, but pointed out and earlier robot at NTNU, the Anna Konda was run by eleven mega128 AVR chips.

The Anna Konda was intended as a fire-fighting robot that could crawl through burning or collapsed buildings. There are other applications as well, anywhere that a robot has to work in confined spaces.

So whether Wheeko goes to Mars or his little sister crawls through your veins, you can bet there will be a snake robot in your future.

TomTom Runner teardown reveals ATSAM4S8C inside

Back at Maker Faire Bay Area in May, the iFixit team took a deeper dive into the technology that is powering some of today’s sports watches, like the TomTom Runner. During its teardown, the iFixit team revealed that the wearable device was powered by an Atmel ATSAM4S8C.

The popular GPS sports watch is equipped with a built-in heart rate monitor, a large monochrome LCD display and one-button control. In addition, the TomTom Runner is embedded with an accelerometer and sensors allowing it to work both outdoors, indoors and even on a treadmill, thus providing providing a user with the kind of data they’d expect to find on most sports watches — such as distance, pace, stride length, calories burned and lap times all in real-time. Bluetooth Smart support also enables a user to sync the Runner with other devices, including a heart rate strap.

Based on ARM’s powerful Cortex-M4 core, the Atmel | SMART SAM4S lineup offers increased performance and power efficiency, higher memory densities (up to 2MB of Flash and 160KB of SRAM), along with an extensive peripheral set for connectivity, system control and analog interfacing. The SAM4S operates at 120MHz and integrates Atmel’s Flash read accelerator, along with optional cache memory to increase system performance. The SAM4S also features a multi-layer bus matrix, multi-channel direct memory access (DMA) and distributed memory to support high data rate communication.

So, how low is low in terms of power consumption? Well, the Atmel | SMART SAM4S family manages to achieve 200µA/MHz in dynamic mode at a low operating frequency; 30mA at 120MHz; and 1µA at 1.8V in back-up mode with the real-time clock (RTC) running. In short, it offers some of the best power consumption/performance rates on the market for standby mode, achieving 120MHz+ operating frequency with a RAM retention mode below 25µA.

On the security side, the SAM4S prevents unauthorized access to on-chip memory, supports secure device reconditioning (chip erase) for reprogramming – while a 128-bit ID and scrambled external bus interface ensures software confidentiality as the hardware cyclic redundancy check (CRC) checks memory integrity. And last, but certainly not least, fitting a device with a SAM4S means easy access to Atmel Studio 6, which offers hundreds of ARM project examples with source code to streamline the design process.

Joining a number of other watchmakers, TomTom Runner is the latest device to feature an Atmel | SMART SAM4S microcontroller. If you recall, Secret Labs announced last year that their AGENT smartwatch was powered by both the SAM4S and tinyAVR microcontrollers.

For those interested in learning more, Atmel engineers have recently published 28 application notes for the company’s comprehensive Atmel | SMART SAM4S devices.

Security, the essential pillar in the Internet of Things

The three hardware pillars of the Internet of Things (IoT) are microcontrollers, wireless chips, and security chips. What is cool about Atmel is that we make all three types of hardware. Atmel is on the ground floor of the Internet of Things (IoT).

I was a pretty natural evolution, since the “Things” are really embedded systems. Atmel has made the chips driving embedded systems ever since the AVR series came out in 1995. So having a really strong position in microcontrollers is essential to any IoT company.

Another pillar of IoT is wireless. Sure, some embedded systems plug in with an RJ45 connector. Indeed, the SAM4E chip has an “E” in the name that stands for its on-board Ethernet controller. But many of these clever new “Things” will connect wirelessly. For that Atmel has Wi-Fi chips, Bluetooth chips, Zigbee chips, and even the chips used in car access key fobs you can use to communicate wirelessly to a hub or base station.

What is not obvious to a lot of people is that security is an equally important pillar in the Internet of Things. Think of the medical privacy laws. Those laws may well apply to any data you are sending to the cloud. At the recent Internet of Things Privacy Summit held here in Silicon Valley, Michelle Dennedy, chief privacy officer at McAfee noted:

 “There has to be a layer of security from the (computer) chip outward. Sure, you want your health information going to your doctor. But you need to help people feel confident that it’s not going elsewhere.”

What is great about Atmel is that we also have a complete line of security chips. You can use these chips to make sure that your “Thing” is the actual and genuine thing it is supposed to be. You can use our chips to make sure that it’s the right thing to be plugged into some other system. You can use security chips to make sure the code you are executing is the genuine code and not some hijack attempt. What I love is that many of the security chips have several kilobytes of undedicated non-volatile memory. So along with security, you have a place to store setup or user information that will persist even when power is cycled to your device.

Back in 1994 my programmer buddy John Haggis showed me the World Wide Web on his computer. It was Mosaic browser looking at a few academic websites. John was really excited. I didn’t get it.”What’s the big deal about that?” I asked. It just seemed like a fancy version of the dial-up bulletin boards I was using to get datasheets and CAD models. I won’t make that clueless mistake with IoT. This is going to be huge. The Internet of Things has all the network effects of the Internet combined with the convenience and utility of the embedded systems that have been making our lives better for the past few decades. Our automotive group tells me that we can look at future cars as just another thing in the Internet of Things. I have written up how IoT will help farmers. You can bet IoT will be a big thing in industrial automation. And there will be a major impact in consumer electronics, from thermostats to toasters. We haven’t even dreamed up some of the “killer apps” for the Internet of Things. Fasten your seat belt, it’s going to be a wild ride.

Check your crypto chip with a Saleae logic analyzer

I have already noted the tiny full-function logic analyzer from Saleae. You can imagine my delight when I found this app note written by our security chip group on how to use the Saleae logic analyzer to debug the serial interface with one of our CryptoAuthentication chips, the ATSHA204.

The ATSHA204A includes a 4.5Kb EEPROM divided into 16 slots. This array can be used for storage of keys, miscellaneous read/write, read-only, password or secret data, and consumption tracking. Access to the various sections of memory can be restricted in a variety of ways and then the configuration locked to prevent changes. Access to the chip is through a standard I²C interface at speeds up to 1Mb/sec.

The Saleae logic analyzer has no problem keeping up with these fast speeds. ATSHA204 device supports either a single-wire interface (SWI) or two-wire interface (TWI) depending on the part number.

When you drop the right dll into the Saleae program directory, you will get a menu callout for the Atmel SWI (single-wire-interface).

You use a dll to add the single-wire debug analysis to the Saleae, while the two-wire interface debugging can be handled by the I²C menu pick. So check out the Saleae logic analyser. My buddies tell me it is worth every penny compared to the cheapo stuff on Seeed Studio since the mechanical engineering is so much better on the Saleae, and the quality of the test leads and the capability of the software, which is a huge part of what a logic analyzer does for you these days. It’s one thing to see highs and lows on the screen, but it’s really nice when the logic analyzer tells you what characters are being sent on the wire or wires.

The Saleae logic analyzer comes with high-quality cables and clips.

So check out the Saleae logic analyzers and be sure to secure your systems with a hardware-based security chip. When it comes to securing our intelligent, connected world, there’s no need to fear… Atmel CryptoAuthentication devices are here!

Vegard Wollan reflects on AVR and Arduino

In this segment of my chat with Vegard Wollan, the co-inventor of the AVR explores the symmetry between the highly-popular microcontroller and the Arduino development board.

Personally, one of the great moments was when Vegard revealed that the entire AVR product line was meant from the start to be easy-to-use. This began with the instruction set, the architecture and continues to this day with things like Atmel Studio 6 integrated development environment (IDE), Atmel Spaces collaborative workspace, and Atmel Gallery, the place where you can find thousands of code samples and tutorials.

Vegard Wollan gestures to the AVR schematics as he explains to Paul Rako how ease of use was a primary design goal from the start.

So it is only natural that Arduino was built on this foundation to make their great ecosystem of development boards and their wonderful IDE. You can see Vegard truly appreciates and respects how Massimo Banzi made the entry into AVR programming even easier for both technical and non-technical folks alike.

Today, AVR 8-bit MCUs (as well as Atmel 32-bit ARM®-based MCUs) power a variety of Arduino’s easy-to-use boards including:

• Arduino Uno: The most “standard” board currently available, the Uno is based on the ATmega328. 
• Arduino Yún: The Yún is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega32u4 (datasheet) and the Atheros AR9331.
• Arduino Nano: The Nano is a small, complete, and breadboard-friendly board based on the ATmega328.
• Arduino Mega 2560: The version of the Mega released with the Uno, this version features the ATmega2560, which has twice the memory, and uses the ATmega 8U2 for USB-to-serial communication.
• Arduino Leonardo: Based on the ATmega32u4, the Leonardo is a low-cost Arduino board, featuring the same shape and connectors as the Uno board but with a simpler circuit.
• Arduino Micro: The Micro is based on the ATmega32u4, developed in conjunction with Adafruit.
• Arduino Esplora: Derived from the Arduino Leonardo, the Esplora is a ready-to-use, easy-to-hold controller based on the ATmega32u4.
• Arduino LilyPad: Powered by an ATmega32u4, the LilyPad is designed for wearables and e-textiles, allowing for the board to be sewn into fabric and similarly mounted power supplies, sensors and actuators with conductive thread.
• Arduino Due: Based on an Atmel ARM Cortex®-M3 processor-based MCU — also known as the SAM3 MCU — the Due board is ideal for home automation projects and can run up to 96MHz.
• Arduino Wi-Fi Shield: Built for Wi-Fi applications, the Arduino Wi-Fi shield is powered by the Atmel AVR UC3 MCU and an H&D wireless module, and provides developers a powerful Wi-Fi interface.
• Arduino Zero: The board is powered by an Atmel SAM D21 MCU, which features a 32-bit ARM Cortex® M0+ core.

If you haven’t had the chance to tune-in to all of Vegard’s 1:1 interviews with the Atmel Analog Aficionado, you can check ’em out here.

Resurrecting a Macintosh Plus from the dustbin

Stuart Cording, an Atmel aficionado over in Europe, tipped me off to this blog where a fellow got his old Mac Plus up and running. Jeff Keacher had the typical hardware problem, a power supply capacitor blew on him after a short while. What was amazing is he also got it to connect to the World Wide Web.

Jeff Keacher got this 27-year-old Macintosh computer up and running and then got it to browse the web.

My buddy Alan Martin over at honored competitor Texas Instruments has a saying “It’s always a cap”. With old radios and such it is the large can electrolytic that dry out. They stop filtering the wall voltage so you then hear a bad hum in the output. Eventually they “punch through” and blow up. For test equipment, Alan often comments on how great it was that Tektronix used all those “lemon drop” tantalum capacitors, since they all fail and make it easy to buy really good test equipment really cheap. Then you just replace all the tantalum and electrolytic capacitors. Like the old Macintosh, you can always find a suitable replacement at Digi-Key, or one of the other distributors. I have described how Eric Schlaepfer over at Google manages to put a new capacitor in the original can, so the gizmo still has that classic vintage took to it.

This is the X-rated capacitor that failed in the Mac Plus.

The cap in the Mac was an X-cap, a film capacitor that is rated for long life and designed to be across line voltage, the 120AC in your house. It is a little disturbing that it failed, film caps don’t dry out like electrolytic. I know some of my pals use a Variac to slowly bring up the line voltage the first time they power up old equipment. I hear that doing that is less stressful to the capacitors and you can see things smoking at a lower voltage so you might not do as much damage.

My analog aficionado pals bring up old equipment with a variac like this. That way you are applying voltage to the input capacitors with a slow ramp-up.

Now there was quite a hardware and software challenge to get the Mac Plus on the web. I think it was a bit of a cheat to use a Raspberry pi. Heck the pi will run Linux and has a video system. Why not just toss the Mac Plus in the garbage and connect a monitor the Raspberry pi? Well, sure, anybody can do that. So the author solved the hardware problem letting a Raspberry Pi be the middle-ware between the Mac and the Web. But there was still plenty of fun putting in a TCP/IP stack and a browser and all the other fun coding they had to do to get a web page to render. Bravo, now I think I will listen to that Merle Haggard song about Fords and Chevys lasting ten years like they should.

Museum of American Heritage highlights technology 1750 – 1950

A tip of the hat to audio guru Steve Williams, who tipped me off to the Museum of American Heritage. What started as a private collection of Frank Livermore has grown into a full-blooded museum.

They intend to combine elements of history, technology, and design. This will illustrate the evolution of technology, how and why it has influenced society from inception to the current time, and give a glimpse of future expectations. The museum has an average of 12,000 visitors per year, plus 3,000 to 6,000 visitors for special holiday displays and over 5,000 attendees at its annual Vintage Vehicles and Family Festival.

Museum Entrance, courtesy Britt Bredstad

There is a nice archive of exhibits and you can poke around their site to see a great spread of technology over the decades.

Located at 351 Homer Avenue in Palo Alto, CA, MOAH exhibits are open from 11am to 4pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, except during exhibit changeover weeks and selected holidays. Call MOAH at 650-321-1004 for further details.

ATmega328P inside the Nexus Q

Talking to one of my Google buddies at the eFlea, he mentioned that there is an ATmega328P inside the Google Nexus Q media streaming device. I asked what it did and he explained there is a row of LEDs around the device and Google wanted those LEDs to light and flash in sequence the second you applied power. A perfect application for a Flash microcontroller that boots in microseconds.

I was concerned that this was a Google secret until a quick check on the Internet showed a post over at the great folks from iFixit. It verifies that there is an ATmega328P inside the Nexus Q, and you can even see the Atmel logo in the picture.

The Atmel ATmega328P is used to flash the LEDs around the periphery of the Google Nexus Q. It’s the bigger chip at the top right (courtesy iFixit).