MEMSIC debuts eCompass Library for Atmel’s Xplained Pro

MEMSIC has announced an Electronic Compass (e-compass) library for Atmel’s popular Xplained Pro platform. According to John Newton, MEMSIC VP of Marketing, the e-compass library will help embedded developers create smarter, more connected devices for the rapidly evolving Internet of Things (IoT) and growing wearables market.

Indeed, the Electronic Compass extension provides a highly accurate, fully tilt compensated electronic compass with calibration that supports MEMSIC’s recently introduced MMC3416xPJ ultra low noise, low power magnetometer in a 1.6 x 1.6 x 0.6 package.

“Integrating sensors can be complex and time consuming. A thorough understanding of the theory of magnetics, sensor behavior, calibration and tilt compensation is required before the design can start, [while] the digital outputs of counts per gauss and counts per g need to be filtered and translated into a tilt compensated heading,” Newton explained.

“MEMSIC can simplify this integration on the Atmel Xplained platform by providing a calibration and Electronic Compass library as a Gallery program. In addition, the MMC3416xPJ provides a high dynamic range of 16 Gauss, which simplifies design by allowing more placement options on the board.”

Newton also noted that Atmel’s ultra-low power processor is an “ideal” match for the MMC3416xPJ magnetic sensor.

“Together they enable an ultra-low power and high performance e-Compass solution; our partnership with Atmel and their Gallery library will enable customers to bring new solutions to market quickly and efficiently,” he added.

The Electronic Compass library is slated to go live in Atmel’s Gallery later this month.

As we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, Atmel’s comprehensive lineup of Xplained Pro boards offers engineers everything they need to start designing microcontroller (MCU) applications in minutes. First off, the boards are quite easy to connect, linking to PCs with just a USB cable.

As expected, the boards are automatically recognized by Atmel Studio, facilitating direct access to example projects and documentation. Meanwhile, hardware extension boards provide easy access to all functionality of the MCU.

Currently, Xplained Pro kits are grouped into three primary categories:

• Evaluation kits – Lowest cost kits starting at $39 for evaluating MCUs and developing with example projects in Atmel Studio.
• Starter kits – Low-cost bundle of MCU and extension boards starting at $99 for rapid application prototyping and development with Atmel Studio and Atmel Software Framework.
• Extension kits – Boards with additional functionality, connecting to Xplained Pro MCU boards through standardized connectors.

On the evaluation side, Atmel offers the SAM D20 Xplained Pro, SAM4N Xplained Pro, SAM4S Xplained Pro, SAM4L Xplained Pro and the ATmega256RFR2 Xplained Pro. In terms of extension boards, there are the I/O1 Xplained Pro, OLED1 Xplained Pro, SLCD1 Xplained Pro and the PROTO1 Xplained Pro.

Going beyond the IDE with Atmel

In today’s complex and feature-rich embedded world, a comprehensive microcontroller (MCU) software framework with an easy integration of software libraries and tools is becoming increasingly important for design teams.

As Atmel’s Joerg Bertholdt notes, a truly integrated development platform comprises a combination of software and hardware – including the software framework and an app store.

“That is why Atmel offers the Xplained Pro evaluation kits, a development board and kit which works with Atmel’s IDE, software framework and Atmel Gallery,” the Director of Marketing, MCU Tools and Software, explained in recent Electronics Weekly article.

“The kits feature a range of professional ARM-Cortex-M4 based Atmel SAM4 microcontroller boards that are complemented by optional interface, display and prototyping boards. These boards are fully supported across Atmel Studio 6, Atmel Software Framework and Atmel Gallery, providing devs with immediate access to over 2,000 ready-to-run project examples.”

Simply put, Atmel’s comprehensive platform allows designers to more easily prototype and accelerate time to market.

“Moving beyond the traditional integrated development environment, the platform-based approach yields yet further developer productivity and efficiency,” Bertholdt continued.

“By combining the editor, compiler and debug functions with quick and easy access to a host of libraries, middleware and specialist tools the integrated development tools platform approach yields efficiencies across the whole design, development, test and prototype process.”

Bertholdt also discussed FreeRTOS, one of the real-time operating systems available in Atmel’s Gallery.

“By accessing FreeRTOs, designers can implement a hassle-free deployment in their application without having to worry about driver integration. Since this is integrated into ASF, it comes complete with a project configuration wizard and example projects to ease the application development process,” he added.

Interested in learning more about how going beyond the IDE with Atmel? Be sure to check out the full text of Joerg’s article here.

In-circuit emulation for AVR and ARM SAM D20 chips

You can do a firmware upgrade on your JTAGICE3 and it will work with the ARM M0+ based SAM D20. If you don’t want to use a separate emulator, there is also a debugger on the $39 SAM D20 Xplained Pro eval board. Atmel has a long history of providing inexpensive development tools. The $49 “Butterfly” eval board and $200 STK200 in-circuit emulator (ICE) was what got me to switch to Atmel micros back in 2000. These days we have three in-circuit emulators, sometimes called debuggers. The $49 Dragon is low cost and does all AVR chips, even the 32-bit AVR chips. The AVR ONE! is much more expensive, about 500 bucks, but it does have trace. That means you can go back and see where your program went as it executed. This can be worth every penny if you have complicated program flows with internal and external interrupts.

Most engineers like the JTAGICE3 emulator Atmel offers for only $99. Like the JTAGICE2, that predates it, the JTAGICE Mark3 can do all the AVR chips, including the newest XMEGA families. The great news is that Studio 6, the integrated development environment (IDE) program Atmel gives away for free, can do a firmware upgrade on your JTAGICE3 so it can work with the new SAM D20 ARM chip Atmel just released.  From the news bulletin:

Atmel Studio 6.1 SP2 includes a firmware update for the JTAGICE3 which adds programming and debugging support for the SAM D20 devices. The JTAGICE3 firmware will be automatically updated when a programming or debugging session is started in Atmel Studio 6.1 SP2.

Atmel Studio 6 users who want to take advantage of this firmware update will have to upgrade to Atmel Studio 6.1 SP2, which will be available for download at http://www.atmel.com/tools/atmelstudio.aspx starting August 15th.

Technical details can be found at http://www.atmel.no/webdoc/jtagice3/jtagice3.whats_new.html.

This is just too cool. Studio 6 has always supported code development of Atmel’s ARM MCU (microcontroller) chips, the ones with internal flash. Now you can debug the M0+ ARM-based SAM D20 with the same JTAGICE3 you use for AVR and AVR-32 chips.

I have to laugh when my buddies say Atmel tries to make money on our eval boards and emulators. We don’t look to make any appreciable profit on the tools. We give away Studio 6 for crying out loud, and anyone that has done product design knows what a cheap deal the eval boards and these emulators are. Atmel sells chips and touchscreens (XSense). That is where we make our money. So you folks that have bought a JTAGICE3, celebrate, you can now debug our great SAM D20 with it. Like I said, “Friends don’t let friends go without a debugger.”

Atmel’s ATmega256RFR2 gets Xplained

An IEEE 802.15.4 compliant single chip combines an AVR microcontroller with a 2.4GHz RF transceiver. Simply put, Atmel’s ATmega256RFR2 offers the industry’s highest RF performance for single chip devices with a link budget of 103.5dBm, all while consuming 50% less current than existing products on the market today.

“The ATmega256RFR2 features hardware assisted multiple PAN address filtering (MAF), as well as improved channel masks on CH25 and CH26,” an Atmel engineering rep told Bits & Pieces.

“This allows the device to run full power (1W) on these channels using external power amplifiers, wake-on radio, improved link efficiency and reliability using RX override, 32-bit MAC symbol counter, temperature sensor, automatic transmission modes, 128-bit AES crypto engine, true random number generator, high data rate modes and antenna diversity support.”

To accelerate development with the ATmega256RFR2, Atmel offers the ATmega256RFR2 Xplained Pro, a hardware-based platform that allows engineers to more easily evaluate the device. Supported by Atmel Studio, the kit provides easy access to various ATmega256RFR2 features and explains how best to integrate the device in a customer design. Like other Atmel Xplained Pro evaluation kits, the ATmega256RFR2 Xplained Pro is capable of significantly expanding its original functionality by linking to additional Xplained Pro extension kits.

For a complete and ready to go package, the ATmega256RFR2-XSTK starter kit includes the Atmel I/O1 Xplained Pro, OLED1 Xplained Pro and PROTO1 Xplained Pro extension boards.

Aside from the ATmega256RFR2 microcontroller (MCU), key ATmega256RFR2 Xplained Pro specs include:

• One mechanical reset button
• One mechanical user pushbutton (wake-up, bootloader entry or general purpose)
• One user yellow LED
• 32.768kHz crystal
• 16MHz crystal
• 5 Xplained Pro extension headers (2 headers are duplicates)
• Antenna diversity: Ceramic RF antenna and SMA connector for external antenna
• Temperature sensor
• Embedded debugger
• Auto-ID for board identification in Atmel Studio 6.1
• One yellow status LED
• One green board power LED
• Symbolic debug of complex data types including scope information
• Programming
• Data Gateway Interface: SPI, TWI, 4 GPIOs
• Virtual COM port (CDC)
• USB powered
• Supported with application examples in Atmel Software Framework

The ATmega256RFR2 Xplained Pro can be purchased here from Atmel’s official store.

A closer look at Atmel’s Xplained kits

Earlier this summer, Bits & Pieces took readers on a brief virtual tour of Atmel’s Xplained Pro kits. Today, we want to familiarize our readers with Atmel’s Xplained evaluation kits for our extensive lineup of 8- and 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUs).

“Essentially, Atmel’s Xplained lineup consists of a series of low-cost MCU boards to help devs evaluate and demonstrate product features and capabilities for different Atmel microcontroller families,” an Atmel engineering rep told Bits & Pieces. “In addition, a rich selection of example projects and code drivers are provided in Atmel Studio, while code functionality is easily added by pulling in additional drivers and libraries from the Atmel Software Framework.

The Atmel Xplained series also includes a range of add-on boards that can be stacked on top of the MCU boards to create platforms for specific application development. This means a wide range of add-on boards is available, including inertial pressure and temperature sensors, ZigBee RF and Cryptographic authentication.

However, it should be noted that due to difference in features such as pin count or memory size, some add-on boards may not work with all MCU boards, so be sure to look at the the table below which summarizes recommended combinations.

On the X/MEGA side, Xplained kits include the XMEGA-E5 (ATxmega32E5) , XMEGA-C3 (ATxmega384C3), XMEGA-A3BU (ATxmega256A3BU), MEGA-1284P (ATmega1284), XMEGA-A1 (ATxmega128A1) and the XMEGA-B1 (ATxmega128B1 and LCD controller).

Additional Xplained kits include the UC3-A3 (AT32UC3A3256), the SAM4S (SAM4S ARM Cortex-M4), CryptoAuthentication add-on (ATSHA204) , UC3-L0 (picoPower AT32UC3L064), Temperature Sensor Xplained (add-on) and the Sensors Xplained (add-on).

A closer look at Atmel’s Xplained Pro kits

Atmel’s comprehensive lineup of Xplained Pro boards offers engineers everything they need to start designing microcontroller (MCU) applications in minutes. First off, the boards are quite easy to connect, linking to PCs with just a USB cable.

As expected, the boards are automatically recognized by Atmel Studio, facilitating direct access to example projects and documentation. Meanwhile, hardware extension boards provide easy access to all functionality of the MCU.

Currently, Xplained Pro kits are grouped into three primary categories:

• Evaluation kits – Lowest cost kits starting at $39 for evaluating MCUs and developing with example projects in Atmel Studio.
• Starter kits – Low-cost bundle of MCU and extension boards starting at $99 for rapid application prototyping and development with Atmel Studio and Atmel Software Framework.
• Extension kits – Boards with additional functionality, connecting to Xplained Pro MCU boards through standardized connectors.

On the evaluation side, Atmel offers the SAM D20 Xplained Pro, SAM4N Xplained Pro, SAM4S Xplained Pro, SAM4L Xplained Pro and the ATmega256RFR2 Xplained Pro.

In terms of extension boards, there is the I/O1 Xplained Pro, OLED1 Xplained Pro, SLCD1 Xplained Pro and the PROTO1 Xplained Pro.

Interested in learning more? Be sure to stay tuned, because next time we’ll be getting up close and personal with Atmel’s MCU Xplained (evaluation) kits.

News from the Gallery

News from the Gallery

By Joerg Bertholdt, Director of Marketing, Tools and Software, Atmel Corporation

We launched Atmel Gallery less than 6 months ago, the first app store of its kind to deliver integrated embedded tools and embedded software straight into a development environment, specifically for Atmel Studio 6.

We were excited to get into uncharted territory, but also anxious about the types of reaction we’d get from our customers. It’s time to see how we did.

With over 25,000 developers – and counting — signed up for a Gallery account, our expectations have by far been exceeded. The servers handled the big demands very well, proving the infrastructure design and scalability.

Keil MDK-ARM Toolchain from Keil enables Atmel Studio to use its highly optimizing ARM compiler

With the February update of the XDK, the Extension Developer’s Kit, partners have been able to easily integrate embedded software and package integrations as projects that install directly into Atmel Studio. For example, developers who are interested in exploring commercial real-time operating systems, now have access to Micrium’s uC/OS and Segger’s embOS. Trial versions of these RTOSes are available as ready-to-run example projects for Atmel’s ARM Cortex-M4 based SAM4S devices.

Two popular extensions are compiler plug-ins. The Keil MDK-ARM Toolchain from Keil enables Atmel Studio to use its highly optimizing ARM compiler. CodeVisionAVR allows the use of HP Infotec’s AVR compiler, which also includes CodeWizardAVR, a graphical peripheral configuration tool for AVR MCUs.

Besides development tools and embedded software extensions, training modules such as Integrating USB In Your Design have also been made available through the Gallery. With the XDK supporting the development of hardware extension boards for Atmel’s Xplained Pro kits, the drivers for the first Xplained Pro partner board will soon be delivered as an Atmel Studio project.

We’re six months in and happy to see the masses have adopted Atmel Gallery.

Are you a Gallery user? Let us know what you like, what you’d like to see improved or if there are additional extensions you would want to see. Just comment on this blog or send me an email to joerg.bertholdt@atmel.com.

Haven’t checked out the Gallery yet, just take a look at gallery.atmel.com. Don’t have Atmel Studio 6? It’s free, you can download it from atmel.com.

Are you an independent software vendor or developer and want to be part of the growing Atmel Studio ecosystem, join the Gallery as a developer; the XDK makes it easy to participate.