Freescale Kinetis based Mbed IoT Starter Kit Ethernet Edition Connects to IBM IoT Cloud

ARM, IBM and Freescale have jointly announced Mbed IoT Start Kit – Ethernet Edition at Embedded World 2015 that consists of  a Freescale Kinetis Cortex M4 mbed-enabled development board and a sensor IO application shield that interface with IBM Bluemix cloud platform. Freescale FRDM-K64F Freedom development board specifications: MCU – Freescale Kinetis K64 (MK64FN1M0VLL12) ARM Cortex M4 MCU @ 120 MHz with 1 MB flash memory, 256 KB RAM External Storage – SDHC slot Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet USB – Dual role USB interface with micro-B USB connector Sensors – FXOS8700CQ accelerometer and magnetometer Headers – Arduino R3 compatible I/O connectors Misc – RGB LED, two user push buttons Power Supply – OpenSDAv2 USB, Kinetis K64 USB, and external source The board also features a programmable OpenSDAv2 debug circuit supporting the CMSIS-DAP Interface software that provides a mass storage device (MSD) flash programming interface, or a CMSIS-DAP debug interface, or […]

Freescale To Give Away StarterTRAK Development Boards for Automotive Applications

Freescale StarterTRAK development boards are based on the company’s Kinetis EA Cortex M0+ MUCs or Qorivva 32-bit MCU targeting automotive applications with support a wide temperature range (–40° to +125°C) and interfaces such as LIN (Local Interconnect Network) and CAN. These development boards can be used for body and security, powertrain, and safety & chassis applications. Freescale has decided to giveaway 60 StarterTRACK development board to random winners, so if you are knowledgeable in this field it could be an opportunity to try the platform. There will be 5 different kits given away, all based on Kinetis MCU: TRK‐KEA8, TRK‐KEA64, TRK‐KEA128, KEA128LEDLIGHTRD and KEA128BLDCRD. Let’s have a closer look at TRK-KEA128 development board. Key features and specifications of  TRK-KEA128 board: MCU – Kinetis KEA128 ARM Cortex M0+ MCU @ 48MHz with 16KB RAM and 128KB flash in a 80 LQFP package On-board openSDA debugging and programming circuit using the PK20DX128 MCU […]

Low Power Mode (Suspend to RAM) in uCLinux for Freescale Kinetis K70 MCU

All ARM based micro-controllers and processors implement multiple power mode in order to save optimize power usage depending on the tasks. However, I’ve been told by some hobbyists/developers/makers that low power modes are not always implemented in Linux, especially for low cost systems either because of hardware limitations or the software is not implemented. EmCraft Systems has just released their latest embedded (uC-) Linux distributions for the MCU boards, and one of the features now available is “suspend to RAM” for their K70 SoM development kit, based on Freescale Kinetis K70 Cortex M4 MCU, which consume just around 600 to 700 uA @ 3.3V (2 to 2.3 mW) in this low power mode. They have connected a multimeter to measure the current drawn at different power modes. If you want to know all the details, you should probably read the company’s article on “Linux Low-Power Mode on Kinetis“, but I’ll […]

Meet Freescale Kinetis KL03, the Smallest Ever ARM MCU

Last year at Embedded World 2013, Freescale announced Kinetis KL02, an ARM Cortex M0+ MCU measuring just 1.9 x 2.0mm. Customer must have complained that it’s not small enough, as the company has just unveiled Kinetis KL03 MCU, 15% smaller or 1.6 x 2.0 mm, at Embedded World 2014. Just like its predecessor KL03 targets space-constraint IoT applications such as ingestible healthcare sensing, portable consumer devices, remote sensing nodes, and wearable devices.   Kinetis KL03 MCU features include: 48 MHz ARM Cortex-M0+ core, 1.71-3.6V operation Bit manipulation engine for faster, more code-efficient handling of peripheral registers 8 to 32 KB flash memory, 2 KB RAM, 8K ROM with on-chip boot loader High-speed 12-bit ADC Internal voltage reference for high ADC accuracy High-speed analog comparator Up to 22 GPIOs with pin interrupt support Low-power UART, SPI, I2C (high speed) Low power wake up Secure real time clock Timers for a broad range of […]

Free Online Courses & Workshops For ARM Cortex-M Microcontrollers

STMicroelectronics and Digikey are co-sponsoring an EE Times University online training course entitled “Fundamentals of Microcontrollers (MCUs): Hands-On Workshop”. The first two 45-minutes sessions will be theoretical and provide and overview of micro-controllers, and explain methods to select an MCU for a given project. The first 1,000 persons based in the US or Canada, who attended the first 2 sessions, will receive a free STM32F4 Discovery Board (ARM Cortex M4). The three next sessions, conveniently taking place about a week later, hopefully after you’ve received your board, will be an actual workshop with STM32F429 Discovery Board. Here’s the detailed schedule for the training: December 2, 2013, 12PM (Eastern Time) –  Session 1 – Introduction to Microcontrollers Common microcontroller architectures Pipelining Peripherals: Timers, Communication, Analog December 3, 2013, 12PM (Eastern Time) – Session 2 – Selecting the Right Microcontroller 10 Steps to Selecting a microcontroller What to look for in a […]

MCU Energy Efficiency Benchmark – Freescale KL02, Microchip PIC24, TI MSP430, and STMicro STM32L

Freescale has recently uploaded a video comparison the energy efficiency of several micro-controllers: Freescale Kinetis KL02, Texas Instruments MSP430, STMicro STM32L, and  Microchip PIC24. Since it’s a Freescale video, we already know the winner, but the test they performed it still interesting, and it shows drastic performance differences between architectures. The used the following exact MCU for testing: Freescale MKL02Z32CAF4R – Cortex M0+ @ 48 MHz STMicro STM32L151RBT6 – Cortex M3 @ 32 MHz Microchip PIC24FJ128GA308 – 16-bit MCU @ 32 MHz Texas Instruments MSP430F5529 – 16-bit MCU @ 25 MHz Freescale did not really select tough competition such as NXP LPC800 Cortex M0+, but instead a Cortex M3 MCU, and older 16-bit MCUs. I don’t know if Microchip has a new generation of ultra low power 16-bit MCUs , but Texas Instruments, for example, launched MSP430 Wolverine MCUs at the end of last year. So this comparison may not be […]

MC HCK is a $5 ARM Development Board Powered by Freescale K20 MCU

MC HCK (pronounced McHack) is a tiny and cheap development board powered by Freescale K20 MCU (ARM Cortex M4) that can be easily programmed via USB. The board has been designed with KiCad, is fully open source hardware, and it’s supposed to cost as low as $5. The only problem, or main advantage, depending on how you look at it, is that it’s not available for sale (yet), but instead you’ll need to make it yourself. The actual cost of doing so will be well over $5 (About $35), but the BoM cost is about $5, and you can make 5 boards for this price, or about $7 per board. The detailed steps are explained on McHck blog, but they can summarized as follows: Order 10 PCB using the gerber files via services such as Seeedstudio or Iteadstudio Order 5 free samples of Freescale K20 MCU. Select MK20DX128VLF5 part, and […]

Freescale Unveils Kinetis KL02, an Ultra Small (1.9×2.0mm) ARM Cortex M0+ Microcontroller

Freescale Semiconductor introduced the Kinetis KL02, the world’s smallest ARM MCU, at Embedded World 2013. KL02 is an ARM Cortex M0+ micro-controller designed to address the miniaturization needs of the Internet of things, and its size (1.9×2.0mm) makes it suitable for applications such as ingestible healthcare sensing, portable consumer devices, remote sensing nodes, and wearable devices.   Kinetis KL02 MCU features include: 48 MHz ARM Cortex-M0+ core, 1.71-3.6V operation Bit manipulation engine for faster, more code-efficient handling of peripheral registers 32 KB flash memory, 4 KB RAM High-speed 12-bit analog-to-digital converter High-speed analog comparator Low-power UART, SPI, 2x IICI2C Powerful timers for a broad range of applications including motor control Power Efficiency – 15.9 CM/mA (Coremark 1.0) -40 °C to +85 °C operation The MCU is manufactured using chip-scale package (CSP) technology that allows to connect the die directly to the solder ball interconnects and, in turn, to the printed […]

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