Home > Products > Energy Micro development kit enables real-time energy profiling for optimising application power

Design

Energy Micro development kit enables real-time energy profiling for optimising application power

16th December 2009

ES Admin

0 0

Energy Micro today announced a development kit for its EFM32 Gecko MCU family providing users with a unique Advanced Energy Monitoring (AEM) system. Via a large in-built LCD screen and preconfigured GUI, AEM enables users to accurately view a prototype application's current consumption data in real time, enabling early identification and removal of adverse energy drains.

Modular in construction, the development kit comprises a motherboard, a plug-in MCU card (available either with or without a 160-segment LCD) and a large plug-in protoyping card for rapid application development. Based on the ultra efficient ARM® Cortex(TM) M3 microcontroller architecture, the target EFM32G MCU running at 3V consumes less than 180µA per MHz in executing code from Flash and is proven to extend battery life by a factor of 4 when compared to alternative 8,16 or 32-bit low power microcontrollers.

To simplify application debugging and programming the development kit features an on-board USB / J-Link emulator and standard 20-pin debug connector. The kit's GPIO interfaces are comprehensive and include LEDs, DIP and pushbutton switches, a mini joystick and potentiometer. Analog options comprise a light sensor, 3-axis accelerometer and audio line-in / line-out, while communications ports provided are 2 x RS232 serial, I2C and an IR transceiver.

Supporting the development kit is Energy Micro's software library, built on ARM's standard CMSIS abstraction layer, IAR's Embedded Workbench® and Keil's MDK-ARM Microcontroller Development Kit.