"With the development of low-power Bluetooth technology, a variety of simple and interesting intelligent products emerge in endlessly, such as anti loss device, wearable step bracelet, Bluetooth smart light bulb, etc. Although these application schemes seem simple, during the actual commercialization, different users expose possible hidden defects due to different use habits, such as poor Bluetooth communication quality High power consumption and other problems. Considering the pain points of low-power Bluetooth devices on the market, communication quality and low power consumption are still the two key points of low-power Bluetooth solutions. Today, Aiban will introduce an ultra-low-power Bluetooth development kit, This is also the low-power Bluetooth communication scheme used by the first generation of Xiaomi Bracelet in domestic sales - da14580devkt-b development kit based on dialog da14580.
In fact, I first learned that dialog acquired ATMEL when it was announced. At that time, I really learned about the company and found that it is mainly engaged in power supply and provides solutions for major well-known manufacturers around the world (apple, Samsung, etc.). Therefore, as a solution for low-power Bluetooth, it is based on the idea of "meaning by implication", Dialog should also have greater advantages in the low-power technology of Bluetooth. Indeed, from the data fed back by all parties, the power consumption of da14580 low-power Bluetooth scheme is basically half of that of the low-power Bluetooth scheme we usually contact, which is very awesome. The author also experienced twists and turns before actually getting the long-standing da14580devkt-b evaluation board, and was detained by the customs halfway. It's really a bit of a good thing. There's no more nonsense. Let's focus on this kit.
The entire package of da14580devkt-b evaluation board is very large. Originally, it was thought that the board would also be very large and there would be a lot of onboard resources. However, the result was unexpected. The board is very small, which can be called exquisite, and there are not many accessories. It is really inconsistent with such a large package. It seems to give people great expectations, but the results are relatively disappointing. In terms of details, this should not be the attribute of a product.
The accessories in the box include:
One da14580devkt-b evaluation board
One MINIUSB cable
A 3.3V button battery
It is worth mentioning that the additional 3.3V button battery is the conscience of the industry. Many development boards also have button battery power supply seats, but they do not necessarily have standard batteries. Dialog does a good job in this. Of course, it may also be self-confidence in the low-power characteristics of its own solution. Looking carefully, although da14580devkt-b does not have many onboard resources, there are many hop cap connections on board. For beginners, understanding the role of these hop caps is the first step to be familiar with the development of board cards.
The specific function of skip cap and the distribution of onboard resources are shown in the figure below
There is a button battery base on the back of the board.
Bluetooth development board recommendations:
Nordic nrf51 Bluetooth dongle is a development tool for producing intelligent Bluetooth, ant and 2.4GHz applications for nrf51 series SOC.
Dialog da14580 Bluetooth development board An integrated arm Cortex-M0 low-power Bluetooth radio receiver, application processor and intelligent power management function.
Cypress cyble-022001 Bluetooth evaluation board One includes Bluetooth 4.1 certification and global frequency control certification, and supports remote control, health and fitness equipment.
If you carefully observe the circuit, you will find that the integration of da14580 is very powerful. Only a few scattered external components can form a low-power Bluetooth solution. It is really exaggerated. It is almost no difficulty for engineers who are not very skilled in hardware circuits. Moreover, we can see that the IO pins of onboard da14580 chip are led out through the expansion seat, It is convenient for later engineers to develop directly based on prototype board.
In fact, when I first came into contact with the da14580devkt-b board, many engineers mistakenly thought that the low-power Bluetooth scheme of da14580 was very complex. In fact, many people were misled by the boost circuit next to the Bluetooth low-power scheme. This is also a curious place. Why is there a boost circuit on the board?
To understand this problem, we should start with the da14580 SOC on board.
The characteristics of da14580 are as follows:
16mhz 32-bit arm Cortex-M0 processor, supports tumb instruction and SWD debugging
32KB OTP - user program
84KB ROM --- ble protocol stack and bootloader
42kb system RAM --- user program running area and temporary data storage area
8KB retention ram --- RAM with very low leakage current for temporary data storage in deep sleep mode
WLCSP qfn40 qfn48 has three packages, among which WLCSP 34 pin package is the smallest in the industry
TX: 3.4 Ma, Rx: 3.7 Ma, the lowest in the industry
The on-chip comes with balun, single IO RF output and single terminal output, which can be directly connected to the antenna, greatly reducing the difficulty of RF development
High performance DC-DC module is integrated internally, which can boost or depressurize, and the minimum working voltage is as low as 0.9V
BOM has low cost and few peripheral components, with a minimum of 7 components
Da14580 is a single-chip low-power Bluetooth SOC, which integrates an arm Cortex-M0 processor, DC-DC module, balun and other circuit modules, especially an OTP memory for one-time burning of user programs. The burning voltage Vpp of this memory can be found from the chip specification. The typical value is 6.7v, as shown in the figure below, This is why we can see a 6.8v boost circuit on the da14580devkt-b evaluation board.
When designing low-power Bluetooth applications, when the user program application is less than 32KB, it is very convenient for us to use the disposable OTP memory as the user program burning of the factory product, and it also saves the space layout and cost of external flash.
Bluetooth development board recommendations:
Nordic nrf51 Bluetooth dongle is a development tool for producing intelligent Bluetooth, ant and 2.4GHz applications for nrf51 series SOC.
Dialog da14580 Bluetooth development board An integrated arm Cortex-M0 low-power Bluetooth radio receiver, application processor and intelligent power management function.
Cypress cyble-022001 Bluetooth evaluation board One includes Bluetooth 4.1 certification and global frequency control certification, and supports remote control, health and fitness equipment.
The SOC of da14580 is most proud of its low power consumption characteristics. In addition to working at a minimum voltage of 0.9V, the low power consumption characteristics of 3.4ma TX and 3.7ma RX of da14580 can be said to be superior to others. Especially for wearable devices, it is only used as data transmission and does not need long-distance transmission, With ultra-low power consumption + 2.5mm * 2.5mm, the da14580 in ultra-small package is unparalleled. Take another look at some mainstream low-power Bluetooth products on the market. You will be more impressed by the da14580.
Of course, da14580 is only one of the dialog da1458x series. Its product line also includes the optimized da14581 for a4wp wireless charging and HCI applications, the Bluetooth intelligent remote control solution da14582 integrating voice and gesture, and the flash version da14583 with the lowest power consumption and the highest flexibility (integrated 1MB flash), Interested engineers can refer to the table below for model selection.
Da14580devkt-b development environment
After understanding the hardware of da14580devkt-b evaluation board, let's take a look at its development environment?
Dialog does not have its own ide tools, so the development environment still needs the help of third-party ide tools. Keil is officially recommended. The official also provides engineers with a software package for keil ide tools. In addition, dialog also has its own tools, such as smartsnippets toolbox and connection manager. One is an analysis tool for Bluetooth software platform, The other is the familiar serial port tool. Both tools can be downloaded on the dialog official website. However, the place where I had to make complaints about the Dialog ecosystem is a bit closed. The website registration needs official confirmation. The first download of SDK also needs official confirmation. It is a bit intolerable for the impetuous engineers.
The SDK officially provided includes some common routine resources, such as ble demo, peripheral control demo, etc. for beginners, the information is not rich, and there is no systematic reference to use guidance documents. The following is a simple use to demonstrate how to verify the program. Select a common blinky routine from the SDK routines provided by the official.
Open it through keil ide tool, and there are corresponding projects above 5.0 or 4.0.
Bluetooth development board recommendations:
Nordic nrf51 Bluetooth dongle is a development tool for producing intelligent Bluetooth, ant and 2.4GHz applications for nrf51 series SOC.
Dialog da14580 Bluetooth development board An integrated arm Cortex-M0 low-power Bluetooth radio receiver, application processor and intelligent power management function.
Cypress cyble-022001 Bluetooth evaluation board One includes Bluetooth 4.1 certification and global frequency control certification, and supports remote control, health and fitness equipment.
When compiling, you need to check generate. Hex file for subsequent downloading through smart snippets tool
JTAG debugging can be realized through the on-board debugger
If you use the Keil tool, you can't download it directly. You can only temporarily store it in the SRAM during the debugging phase. As shown in the above figure, let's download and verify it through the official dialog tool and open the smart snippets tool.
Select the booter function (one of the functions of the smart snippets tool),
Select the compiled. Hex file and download it through the serial port. After the download is successful, we can see that the LED of the development board flashes. It should be noted that the J9 jump cap connected to the LED needs to be closed.
This download method through serial port is also written to SRAM, and the program will disappear after power failure. If you want to write on-board SPI flash, you need to rewrite the configuration jump cap (as shown in the figure below) and connect the SPI interface.
At this time, the burning is realized through the smart snippets tool.
After the burning is successful, the user program will not disappear even if the power is off.
Smart snippets of dialog company is a comprehensive analysis, download and configuration tool. In addition to the basic serial port monitoring and download functions, it also has functions such as power consumption analysis. In addition, it can quickly learn and develop a low-power Bluetooth evaluation board based on da14580 in combination with the SDK provided by the official and the IDE keil developed by a third party. It may not be suitable for beginners, However, once you are familiar with it, it is quite convenient. Of course, the most important thing is whether da14580 is your dish. If you just need such a low-power Bluetooth SOC solution with ultra-low power consumption and ultra-small package, don't try it quickly.
In addition, for the development of low-power Bluetooth applications, of course, the development of mobile terminals is indispensable. Dialog official also provides corresponding app adaptation development boards, including IOS, Android system, DSPs, SmartTag, smartdice, etc.
Of course, when using the mobile app to interact with the development board, ensure that da14580devkt-b downloads the demo containing ble communication, which can be found in the SDK provided by the official. This article will not repeat one by one. The following is the interconnection interface between the mobile app DSPs and the development board, which can carry out some remote control and other operations.
For more development documents, you can access the dialog official website (registration required).
Summary
This paper introduces the single chip low-power Bluetooth SOC da14580 development platform da14580devkt-b, which has the lowest power consumption and the smallest package in the industry, and the on-board programmer, which can easily realize j-link debugging; The development board leads out all expansion IO ports to facilitate engineers to carry out prototype development; In addition, the board is also equipped with an SPI flash and a boost circuit for OTP storage of da14580 chip, which is convenient for users to experience da14580 OTP programming and different development applications through external SPI flash.
As we all know, the combination of low-power Bluetooth and sensors can be said to be a good base friend. However, the da14580devkt-b board is not equipped with any sensors; Moreover, in practical application, there is no complete set of development system tools. Often, it is necessary to switch between the third-party keil and their own smart snippets tools, which is troublesome. Especially in realizing different download methods, it is also necessary to switch different jumping hats on the board, which is not very easy for beginners. However, after all, the shortcomings do not hide the shortcomings. Dialog's da1458x series low-power Bluetooth SOC is no different. Therefore, it is currently pursuing an excellent solution for exquisite, beautiful and low-power wearable device applications. In fact, this is also obvious. You should know that the second generation of Xiaomi Bracelet still adopts dialog's da1458x series low-power Bluetooth single-chip solution.
Bluetooth development board recommendations:
Nordic nrf51 Bluetooth dongle is a development tool for producing intelligent Bluetooth, ant and 2.4GHz applications for nrf51 series SOC.
Dialog da14580 Bluetooth development board An integrated arm Cortex-M0 low-power Bluetooth radio receiver, application processor and intelligent power management function.
Cypress cyble-022001 Bluetooth evaluation board One includes Bluetooth 4.1 certification and global frequency control certification, and supports remote control, health and fitness equipment.
Original statement: This article is original by Aiban. Reprint is declined“
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