SAMA5D3 Xplained gets unboxed

Atmel’s recently launched SAMA5D3 Xplained board is a low-cost, fast prototyping and evaluation platform for microprocessor-based design.

The $79 board, which made its debut at Embedded World 2014, is built around Atmel’s SAMA5D3 ARM Cortex-A5 processor-based MPU and packed with a rich set of ready-to-use connectivity and storage peripherals, along with Arduino shield-compatible expansion headers for easy customization. The platform is also a perfect target for headless Android projects, with a Linux distribution and software package facilitating rapid software development.

Earlier this week, CNXSoft of CNX Software unboxed the $79 board and documented the experience with pictures and detailed observations.

So, let’s get started. CNXSoft kicks off the unboxing by describing the items accompanying the board, including a micro USB to USB cable for power and programming, along with a small card titled “Overview and Compliance Information” which details EU compliance information regarding RoHS2 and EMC (the board is compliant with both CE and FCC standards).

“On the top of the board, we’ll find the 2 USB host connectors, and 2 Ethernet connectors (GMAC and EMAC). On the right, the micro USB port, as well as pads to solder an external power supply and a micro SD slot on the left, reset, wake up and user buttons, as well as JTAG, LCD, and debug (serial) connectors at the bottom, and around the MPU and memories, the Arduino UNO R3 compatible headers with the names of the different pins,” he writes.

“On the back we’ll find the SD card slot, and again, the markings for the Arduino compatible connectors.”

As CNXSoft notes, the board arrrives pre-loaded with a Linux distribution (poky) built with the Yocto Project, comprising bootloaders (AT91Bootstrap and U-boot), the Linux kernel and a custom lightweight rootfs. To get started, simply connect the micro USB to USB cable to a PC to boot the system.

“You should see a blue LED lit up and blink. There’s no display, but there are three ways to access the board from Linux or Windows computers: PC USB, USB to serial and SSH,” he writes.

“You can login with the board using the root account without password. The USB and SSH methods are the most convenient since you don’t need to connect extra hardware, but you won’t be able to access the bootloader that way, debugging the Linux kernel, if needed, will be difficult, and each time, the board is rebooted, the connection will be lost. So for development, you should really get a serial to USB debug board.”

Next, CNXSoft takes a quick look at the kernel version and memory usage, noting 136M free on the rootfs and 21MB used out of 246 MB RAM. He then follows the build procedure found on GitHub, initializing the build directory, adding meta-atmel layers conf/bblayer config files, editing conf/local.conf to specify the SAMA5D3 Xplained board, building and finally, installing the demo image.

 Subsequently, CNXSoft describes the flash procedure, which comprises the following steps:

• Making sure the board is connected to a PC via the micro USB port
• Removing JP5 (NAND CS, upper left of Atmel MPU) jumper to disable NAND Flash memory access
• Pressing BP2 reset button (bottom left) to boot from on-chip Boot ROM
• Closing JP5 to enable NAND Flash memory access
• Changing the name of copy the device tree blob file
• Running the flash script: chmod +x demo_linux_nandflash.sh

“It will take a little while, and once completed you can login to the board and verify you’ve got a brand new kernel and rootfs. You can also check the flashing log in logfile.log in case something went wrong,” he added.

Interested in learning more? You can check out the CNX Software’s full unoboxing write up here or buy the SAMA5D3 Xplained from Atmel’s official store here.

The turbo encabulator

My buddy Andy Aronson reminded me of this great spoof video;

If only microcontrollers were this simple. This original spawned a whole slew of copies, like this one from the cool folks at Rockwell Automation.

I hope you agree, these videos deserve every one of the hundreds of thousands of views.

Video: Designing a mesh networked conference badge

Andrew Nohawk recently attended ZaCon V, a free South African security conference. In honor of the event, Nohawk decided to design an interactive mesh networked conference badge.

As HackADay’s Mathieu Stephan reports, the slick platform is powered by Atmel’s stalwart ATmega328 microcontroller (MCU). Additional features include a Nokia 5110 LCD, a 433MHz AM/OOK TX/RX module, a few LEDs and an assortment of buttons.

“The badges form a mesh network to send messages. This allows conversations between different attendees to be tracked,” Stephan explained.

“Final cost was the main constraint during this adventure, which is why these particular components were chosen and bought from eBay & Alibaba.”

According to Stephan, the first PCP prototypes were CNC milled and required quite a bit of soldering to finish off the 77 final boards. Meanwhile, the protocol itself was verified using Maltego.

“Of the 77 badges soldered together (at various stages of ‘full working order’ – especially the BYOB people) the front computer captured 9810 transmissions, 49 badges and 201 different relationships,” Nohwak confirmed in a blog post detailing the project.

Interested in learning more? You can access the relevant code, raw sqlite database and Maltego graphs from GitHub here or visit the project’s official blog post here.

Mixed martial arts training with Fight Coach

Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a full contact combat sport that allows the use of both striking and grappling techniques from a variety of other fighting genres.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

While an experienced trainer is essential to prepare for an upcoming bout, aspiring fighters may also want to step into the practice ring with Fight Coach.

As HackADay’s Will Sweatman reports, the training platform, created by Cornell University’s Vincent Nguyen and Jooyoung Park, is built around Atmel’s ATmega32U4 microcontroller (MCU), an MPU-6050 6-axis accelerometer and a RN-41 Bluetooth module – all packed into a pair of boxing gloves.

“Fight Coach is a sensor that can be embedded into combat-sport equipment that can allow combat athletes to get a better gauge of their performance. By tracking the athlete’s movement and displaying it in real-time, Fight Coach can help athletes optimize their training,” Nguyen and Park explained on the project’s official page.

“In addition, Fight Coach is small enough to fit inside muay thai shinpads, boxing gloves, or even on your hand wraps. [Plus], Fight Coach records data from the fighter’s gloves so that it can not only be analyzed to improve performance, but also interact with the fighter in real-time.”

Currently, Fight Coach offer three primary modes of training: defense, damage and free-training, which is likely more than enough to help fighters hold their own in the ring.

Interested in learning more about Fight Coach? You can check out extensive documentation on the project’s official Cornell page here.

ATmega644 MCU powers phased array speaker system

Edward Szoka (ecs227) and Tom Jackson (tcj26) of Cornell University have designed a phased array speaker system capable of “steering” sound around a room.

As HackADay’s Will Sweatman reports, the ATmega644-powered platform samples a standard audio input signal at approximately 44.1 kHz via 12 independently controllable speakers – each with a variable delay.

 Simply put, the angle of maximum intensity of the output wave can be shifted by adjusting the delay at precise intervals.

“Phased arrays are usually associated with EM applications, such as radar. But the same principles can be applied to sound waveforms,” Sweatman explained.

The basic idea behind a phased-array? By changing how the speakers are driven, the angle of the maximum intensity of the output wave can be shifted.

“This type of array was built to be able to support various other more advanced design challenges, including longer-range acoustic modem transmission and sonar imaging,” they added.

Interested in learning more? You can check out the project’s official page here and HackADay’s write up here.

Digispark goes Pro (ATtiny167) on Kickstarter

The Atmel-based Digispark dev board has gone Pro on Kickstarter. Powered by Atmel’s ATtiny167 microcontroller (MCU), the new board is even easier to use than the original Digispark.

“[The Pro is] packed full of i/o, more program space and more features,” Digispark Pro creator Erik Kettenburg explained.

“With new shields and libraries the Digispark Pro is still just as small as a Digispark and just as affordable – because electronics should be accessible to all.”

Aside from Atmel’s ATtiny167 MCU, key project specs and features include:

• Compatible with Arduino IDE 1.5 (OSX/Win/Linux)
• Fully signed drivers and executable for easy installation
• USB programming, USB device emulation, USB-CDC virtual serial port emulation
• 
16KB Flash Memory (14.5K+ after bootloader)
• Serial over USB debugging and communication
• 14 i/o Pins (2 shared with USB)
• I2C, true SPI, UART, LIN and USI
• ADC on 10 pins
• Three PWM channels (which can be assigned to a selection of pins)
• Power via USB, or external source – 5v or 6-16v (automatic selection)
• On-board button that can be used as a reset, program, or user button – or disabled to use that pin as general i/o – without altering the bootloader
• On-board 500ma 5V regulator
• Power LED and Test/Status LED (on Pin 1)
• User accessible solder jumpers to disable LEDs
• Two mounting holes
• Breadboard compatible pin out/spacing (the three side header pins are for legacy shield support)

On the software side, the Digispark Pro uses the latest Micronucleus USB bootloader for programming, which facilitates easy programming over USB direct from the Arduino IDE (or command line). 

According to Kettenburg, the open source Micronucleus is the official bootloader of the original Digispark, with the company confirming installation of the ‘loaders on over 40,000 devices.

“With the help of friend, LittleWire creator, and Digispark user Ihsan Kehribar – the Digispark Pro supports emulating a USB CDC/Serial Device – when enabled it shows up as a serial port on all major platforms (OS X/Win/Linux/Raspi/Android) – which means it will work with the Arduino Serial Monitor, other programs designed for Arduinos that appear as a serial port and be much easier to integrate into custom programs,” he explained.

“We also provide libraries for the Pro to emulate a USB keyboard, mouse, joystick, or generic HID device. This means it can appear to your computer as if it were that type of device – allowing you to easily have your device type, move the mouse, act as a joystick and more.”

As expected, the Digispark Pro is backwards compatible with all existing Digispark shields.

Nevertheless, Kettenburg is also offering a number of Pro exclusive shields for various applications, including WiFi, Bluetooth Classic, Bluetooth Low Energy and a nRF24L01+ low cost mesh networking.

Last, but certainly not least, the Digispark Pro is ready to connect to just about any peripheral. Indeed, the dev board offers a stand-alone SPI, UART (with LIN capabilties) and I2C that is shared with a USI bus – which could act as a second SPI or UART for advanced users.

Interested in learning more about the Digispark Pro? You can check out the project’s official Kickstarter page here.

IR reflow in your home lab

While at the EELive! conference last week I met up with the PCB-POOL folks. I first heard about this PCB fab house from my buddy Wayne Yamaguchi. Despite their being located in Ireland, Wayne said they were getting the prototype boards to him in a week. Best yet, at that time, they did not charge extra for non-rectangular board shapes, and Wayne’s boards were all round, used to convert a Maglite flashlight to an LED flashlight.

What caught my eye at the PCB-POOL booth at EELive! was a card that had a toaster oven picture and the headline: “Create your own solder reflow station.” Now it was Wayne that tipped me off about doing reflow for prototypes in your garage. He too used a toaster oven. He just did a few experiments on when to turn it on, when to put in the PCB and when to turn it off. He said he decent results, but the problem with this is that it is an essentially uncontrolled process.

This card was from the PCB-POOL booth at the EELive! conference in 2014.

Enter PCB-POOL. Sure, they sell the toaster ovens. The real deal is they sell the third version of a controller so you can create a profile on your toaster oven. Please don’t use the toaster in your kitchen; flux is not the best butter for your English muffins. So like the picture explains, buy the reflow controller from PCB-POOL for $315, get a brand new toaster oven for 80 bucks, and if you order 5 PCBs from PCB-POOL, they cost 30 dollars each, and PCB-POOL gives you a free solderpaste stencil with the order.

A solder stencil is a thin steel sheet that is laser-cut to have the pads of your circuit board. You carefully position it on top of your bare PCB and then you can squeegee solder paste over it, like doing ink on a silkscreen. Only instead of ink, you are deposing a thin coating of solder paste on all the places where surface-mount parts will mount.

This is a solder stencil, with laser or photo-etched cutouts for where you will put solder paste on your prototype PCB.

Now that you have the solder on the pads, the surface mount components will just stick to the board and self-align as the solder melts. Sometimes you can even put parts on both sides and use the solder paste to suspend the parts on the bottom. For heavier parts on the bottom you need a dab of hot-wax or silicon to keep the part in place through the reflow process.

The great thing is that your reflow process has a real temperature profile, like it should. I assume the controller has a SCR or maybe it is just a bang-bang controller that cycles power to achieve a given profile and temperature. The more control you have the more repeatable your process. One nice thing about using the stencil at all is that it proves out your CAD padstacks. If you made some part and forgot to put a solder paste element in the pads for that part, you will realize it really quick when you see there is no solder paste on those pads. This lets you fix your CAD file before it goes into production.

The next level would be to send the whole board to an assembly house like Screaming Circuits in Oregon or Advanced Assembly in Colorado (right down the street from Advanced Circuits, but a different company). Indeed, the first outfit I saw giving out free stencils was Sunstone, which is near Screaming Circuits in Oregon. When you send your fabbed boards to these small-lot assembly houses you are doing more than just sparing yourself the headache of soldering up the board yourself. You are proving out the solder-paste file from your CAD program, as well as the “insert” file as OrCAD 9 calls is, what the pick-and-place machine uses to place your components on the board before reflow soldering. Now you might find that the TO-220 parts have an insert location way off to the side and won’t let the machine vacuum pick them up. So when the nice folks at Screaming Circuits explains this to you, you can fix the CAD files before they go into higher volume production. The real job of an engineer is to make a set of comprehensible coherent documentation that lets the manufacturing world make lots of your design. This is every bit as important as getting the chips to work and the firmware to run.

Most all the fab houses can hook you up with short-run assembly. Some can have your prototypes hand-soldered; many need 3-feet of tape and reel parts so it fits in their machine. That is the cool thing about Screaming circuits, they have adapted their machines so you put in 4 or 5 pieces on some DigiKey cut-tape and make just 5 boards with no parts left over. And don’t forget my pals at Sierra Proto Express. It was Ken Bahl who created the whole short-run prototype concept 20 years ago. These days they specialize in high performance boards, down to a few mills or many ounces of copper along with blind and buried vias. Best yet, they have a partner in China, so when you are ready for high-volume, they can guarantee the partner can make any board you had made at Proto Express.

EELive! Conference a big splash in Silicon Valley

I went to the EELive! Conference in San Jose last week and it was a blast. This is the new incarnation of the old Embedded Systems Conference (ESC). Last year it was branded Design West, but I suspect that was too generic, since it is not aimed at mechanical engineers that might read Design News. Another problem with the word “design” is that in the semiconductor industry, only IC engineers are considered “designers.”

I was delighted to hear that UBM, the folks that run the show are considering moving it to Santa Clara convention center next year. I like Santa Clara better since the parking is free, it’s easier to get to, and its right near my house.

So following are some snaps I took on the show floor. Bear in mind that another big part of the EELive! is the conference part, where you can learn about the latest secrets and tips and tricks from technical experts. You have to pay for the conference, but they were nice enough to give a single-class pass to regular shmucks like me that were just attending the free show on the exhibit hall.

As you entered the show floor there was this great theater (or should I say theatre) set up. Here we see show runner Karen Field and EETimes editor Max Maxfield doing a fun give-away. I ran into Max later that evening and he gave me his business card, which lists his title as “Editor of all things fun and interesting.”

There was always a healthy crowd at the theatre, and they were always having a good time. It’s really great to see this combination of social and technology at technical conferences.

If you work with RF, you know that Rohde & Schwarz makes some of the best test equipment on the planet. They are best known for their spectrum analyzers, but now they are making oscilloscopes and hand-held instruments.

Where Rohde & Schwarz really stands out in my mind is network analyzers like this baby. They have some of the lowest-noise units in existence. A network analyzer is like a spectrum analyzer that also measures the phase change of a signal. So rather than just read the spectrum, the unit sends out a signal you connect to your circuit, and then you can get a gain-phase plot, or in this case, you can see a Smith Chart displayed right on the screen. Note the frequency range for this instrument—9 kHz to 6 GHz. That is 9,000 to 6,000,000,000, or nearly 6 decades of range. That is quite an accomplishment. Those N-type connectors on the front belie what a fast beast this is. BNC connectors are not suitable for multi GHz frequencies.

Here is Rhode & Schwarz account manager Steve McMoyler in front of a display of a bunch of cool test equipment he sells. I complained that Rohde & Schwarz stuff is so good we can never find a cheap deal on eBay. He laughed, and pointed out a lot of their new stuff is really cost competitive. I put this to outfits like Rigol selling 400-dollar scopes that, while not the greatest, will actually trigger and show you a waveform. These cheap scopes have put pressure on all the test equipment manufacturers. Then again, the Maker movement has increased the market for these inexpensive products, so the manufacturers can archive high-volume cost efficiencies.

National Instruments had a great booth at EELive! this year. This pic was as the show opened on Thursday, but before long, the booth was swamped with engineers interested in everything from Labview visual programming to the MultiSim Spice simulation program so loved by colleges around the world.

Element14 was at the show, the folks previously know as Newark Electronics. Everything from game controllers to motor control was on display.

One nice feature of EELive! are these little classes put on in glass booths throughout the show floor. You can see this one was packed, standing room only. There is a real hunger to learn the expertise to design and program embedded systems.

The Segger folks were there. Atmel uses Segger debugging technology in a lot of their eval boards. Here we see James Murphy and Shane Titus ready to answer any questions.

Here is the Atmel SAMA5D3 evaluation board with Seggar technology running their emWin graphics library.

The PCB fab companies were there, including the PCB-POOL folks my buddy Wayne Yamaguichi liked so much.

Here we see Tony Shoot from PCB-POOL showing some of their capabilities, as they segue into a full prototype shop.

The LeCroy folks were at the show. I can’t get over how beautiful the display is on these modern scopes. I bought one of their $60k units when I was at National Semiconductor. The engineers used to Tek or Agilent would complain the user interface was weird, but once they bothered to learn it, you could not tear the LeCroy scope out of their hands. I myself have a LeCroy 9360 digital scope at my home lab.

Here is a LeCroy serial data analyzer on the left and a HDO4000 scope on the right. Its got a 4k screen and 12-bit resolution. Those big 12-inch screens sure can spoil you. Note they have a web-cam perched on top of the scope with a real-time video displayed on the top right of the screen. They are piping the scope screen to the TV, talk about reducing eye strain when you debug. Sweet.

The Screaming Circuits folks had a booth. These are the people that will assemble small quantities of your circuit boards. They have special machinery so they don’t need 3 feet of tape and real parts for any build. You can send them your Digi-Key cut-tape parts and they can feed them into their tape and reel machines. That way you can check out your insert file and assembly drawing and have circuit boards made in a real IR reflow oven. Here Scott Pohlmann was ready to answer any questions about protying and their partnering with Sunstone and other fab houses, as well as Digi-Key. They can even have your designed kitted up, get the boards fabbed at Sunstone and delivery you assembled boards.

Atmel had their giant Tech on Tour trailer at right on the show floor. Michelle would buzz you in to checkout all the demos and give access to Atmel applications people that could answer your questions or help with your next project.

One demo that people loved was the MakerBot, which would make items like this while you watched.

Here is a little movie of the Makerbot in action. It is hypnotizing to watch.

Biosensors you stick to your skin

CBS ran an interesting article about tiny biosensor patches that monitor your health while they are stuck to your arm or leg. The article referenced work done by engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University. You stick the biosensor to your skin like a temporary tattoo. The work was presented in a paper hidden behind a paywall at Sciencemag.org. The abstract reads:

“When mounted on the skin, modern sensors, circuits, radios, and power supply systems have the potential to provide clinical-quality health monitoring capabilities for continuous use, beyond the confines of traditional hospital or laboratory facilities. The most well-developed component technologies are, however, broadly available only in hard, planar formats. As a result, existing options in system design are unable to effectively accommodate integration with the soft, textured, curvilinear, and time-dynamic surfaces of the skin. Here, we describe experimental and theoretical approaches for using ideas in soft microfluidics, structured adhesive surfaces, and controlled mechanical buckling to achieve ultralow modulus, highly stretchable systems that incorporate assemblies of high-modulus, rigid, state-of-the-art functional elements. The outcome is a thin, conformable device technology that can softly laminate onto the surface of the skin to enable advanced, multifunctional operation for physiological monitoring in a wireless mode.”

This biosensor can monitor your health when adhered to your body.

What was telling about the paper were all the people involved:

Sheng Xu, Yihui Zhang, Lin Jia, Kyle E. Mathewson, Kyung-In Jang, Jeonghyun Kim, Haoran Fu, Xian Huang, Pranav Chava, Renhan Wang, Sanat Bhole, Lizhe Wang, Yoon Joo Na, Yue Guan, Matthew Flavin, Zheshen Han, Yonggang Huang, and MacArthur fellow John A. Rogers.

I am not sure if that is a list of grad student slaves or distinguished professors, but the CBS article neglected to mention that some of the authors represent Tsinghua University in Beijing, Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, and Hanyang University in Seoul. This long list confirms the observation of my pal Ed Fong that system-level design requires engineers that are more social than IC designers and, I suspect, programmers. Ed has done both IC design and worked in complex electro-mechanical systems, so he should know. When you do a complex system like these biosensors it only stands to reason you would need a lot of people involved since there is so much expertise needed in so many areas.

The flexible sensor is like a temporary tattoo, it can bend and flex with your body in order to stay attached and keep working.

Here is a closeup.

And an ultra-close-up.

The new paper implements a complete system based on these biosensors. Adding a power system and a microcontroller and probably a radio is not trivial, hence the large crown of contributors. Another thing that makes me proud of the recent paper is that it has contributors from the US, China, and Korea. That is what I love about technology and engineering. While other industries and politicians give lip service to diversity, the tech industry has practiced it for decades. Here in Silicon Valley every tech company is more like the United Nations. As long as you know what you are doing, you can work anywhere you want, and that is something we all should be proud of.

Here is a biosensor as it would appear adhered to a heart.

Speaking of medical devices, my pal Ken Carroll went to work for Nanostim over 5 years ago. The idea is to make a heart pacemaker so small that you can just attach it to the heart. The wires of a pacemaker are one of the most problematic components, and they wear out and need replacement before the pacemaker battery dies.

This Nanostim pacemaker is 1/10 the size of a conventional one. It is implanted directly in the heart, needing no fragile wires to deliver the pulses to the heart.

Here is the Nanostim pacemaker in-situ.

Ken is a great IC designer, and if anyone can make a chip small enough and low-power enough, he can. I see Nanostim was acquired by St Jude’s Medical last year, so that is good news for all the people that worked for so many years to make this a reality. I have a mechanical engineer buddy that works at a laser eye surgery place, and he tells me it is really exacting work when you have to keep the FDA happy.

Atmel’s SAM4L at the Colorado School of Mines

Analog aficionado and Linear Systems marketing maven Tim McCune saw some of our cool ARM Cortex M4-based SAM4L-EK demo kits at the last Analog Aficionados party. Turns out his son Clark just entered the Colorado School of Mines and Tim thought his son could learn a lot from the kit. This is the same kit that Atmel is featuring in its 2014 Tech on Tour training, where we drive a giant 18-wheeler truck onto your campus or company and then do training or product demos.

The Atmel Tech on Tour mobile trailer is available to drive to your location and conduct training for employees or students.

So I wangle a couple kits from Atmel events director Donna Castillo and sent them off to Clark. In addition to the ARM Cortex M4-based SAM4-EK, the training bundle had an AT86RF233 Xplained Pro wireless board and an 10-pin XPRO adapter PCB. This allows the SAM4 Xplained pro to take the RF board.

Tim reported the kits were a big hit:

“The kits arrived last Friday, before the three-day weekend, which was a great morale-booster for Clark. He was stuck there with not much to do, most of his friends were at home or skiing. Figuring out how to fire up the kits and start working in C was pretty fun. And when his classmates started drifting back he had the coolest new toys on the hall.”

Clark McCune and pal fires up the Atmel SAM4-EK at the Colorado School of Mines.

 

Here Clark McCune has both SAM4-EK kits at the ready, with the one hooked to the computer also sporting the AT86RF233 wireless board that comes with the Tech on Tour training.

Here are the kits I sent Clark McCune. The Tech on Tour training will get you up to speed on ARM Cortex M4 programming as well as wireless connectivity.

The SAM4L-EK has a board and a ton of cables including the micro-USB ones you will need to power the board.

Both displays have a protective film over them, so be sure to peel them off to get the best appearance.

Right out of the box the board is programmed to read the slider on the bottom right side. The number “104” changes in proportion to your finger posing. Note the smaller power consumption display above the main one. The L in SAM4L stands for low power, so Atmel includes a power monitor right on the board.

We also include the jumpers, just set off to the side, so you don’t have to hunt any down from your old Windows 95 add-in cards.

Here is the SAM4L set up with the AT86RF233 Xplained Pro wireless board and an 10-pin XPRO adapter PCB. I hope Clark had them in the right way because I just copied what he had in his picture.

Here is a close-up of the power monitor display. With the programs running full-bore, you can see the board is using 1.92 mA, but the firmware is nice enough to tell you it is using 159μA/MHz.

Press pushbutton PB0 and the board kicks into standby, where the PCB only draws 66μA. Sorry for the shaky camera, the display is sharp as a tack.

Speaking of shaky camera work, I tried to press the PB0 pushbutton and snap a pic at the same time, so you can see the little display on the SAM4L-EL work like a tiny oscilloscope, showing the power consumption dropping from 2mA to 69μA.

And finally, another shaky camera shot of the SAM4L-EK returning to full power mode.

What is really cool about the little power monitor is that it does show transient events, like when the code services an interrupt and returns to low-power mode. Oh, I forgot to show the back of the PCB, here is a shot:

The back of the SAM4L-EK has more chips, I assume to run the debugger and such. Note the nice clear rubber feet to keep the pins from scratching your desk.

This is such a well-done kit, and if you want to get on the ARM bandwagon, it is a perfect way to learn. Better yet, with the RF board it gets you familiar with the Internet of Things (IoT) applications the whole world is hungering for. So check out the Tech on Tour training and feel free to badger you local Atmel rep or FAE to bring the ToT mobile trailer to your school or company.