"At the 2017 SCIENCE TOE ENGING Innovation Competition, the pavilion has received a lot of sponsoring for the development board provided by the participants of the competition. How many kinds of odd panel engineers are slowly announced. This article first talks about one of the Internet of Thunderboard Sense. This kit is still very like, and the exquisite and small Internet sensor suite launched by Silicon Labs, the entire kit itself can be seen as a Internet of Things sensor acquisition applications, through Bluetooth Connect mobile app to get sensor data. Of course, the design value of the real representative is far from such a short story. The introduction can be covered. Next, take everyone to experience the charm of this set of development boards!
Thunderboard Sense
First, look at the true touch of the Thunderboard Sense Kit, the box is exquisite, the front is the logo of Silicon Labs, usually in the Chinese name, we call the core.
The back of the box is the name of the board and PN, and there are some statements, there is no conflict card content, slightly.
The interior of the box includes a Thunderboard Sense board with a static electric bag, a CR2032 button battery and a guiding instructions.
Thunderboard Sense development board front.
Thunderboard Sense development board back.
Looking at this is a product that can be played, so this love board engineer decided to play like consumer electronics, and then go to the functional characteristics, parameters, development environment, etc. of its board.
Sensor development board recommended:
The Lis3MDL evaluation board enables motion detection and positioning functions within a smartphone and personal navigation.
MPU-9250 9-AXIS development board A MotionTracking component, special, such as smart phones, tablets, wearing sensors, etc. must be low power, low cost, high performance Consumer Electronics Equipment Design.
MAX7667 Evaluation Kit A flight time ultrasonic ranging solution, combined with flexible electronic implementation and necessary intelligence to optimize each functional environment and target conditions.
Used
Silicon Labs provides mobile app support for the Thunderboard Sense development board while for iOS and Andriod systems. For domestic users, it is more embarrassing that the APP of the Android system needs to go to Google store. This is a bit difficult. As for why, everyone understands. Relatively speaking, the app acquisition of the iOS system is relatively easy. (What should I do without the IOS system mobile phone? You have to go to GitHub to download the official Andriod source code, compile by Andriod Studio tool, source code address: https://github.com/siliconlabs/thunderboard-android)
Install the button battery in the kit to the Thunderboard Sense board even calculate the power work. However, if you don't work for a long time, the board will enter sleep state, save power, so if you don't find the Bluetooth signal of Thunderboard Sense when configuring the app, you can activate the lower plate on the board.
3 categories of operation, Motion, Environment, I / O are present in the mobile phone app. Motion, ENVIRONMENT, I / O.
The actual experience found that the Motion is equivalent to the operation of the gyroscope. It is not a problem in the implementation of the function after calibration. The focus is more precise. It is obviously unable to learn only by the animation of the mobile phone. And the environment is on the board. Various environmental sensors collect parameters, from the App interface, at least temperature humidity sensors, ambient light sensors, ultraviolet sensors, air pressure sensors, microphone features; I / O is the most simple control IO, can pass Touch button on the app on the board and the RGB LED on the board. In addition, there is a button shared to the cloud in the upper right corner of the app, which can easily collect and view a large number of real-time sensor data for cloud-based analysis and business intelligence.
The function is quite complete, and the board is packaged, it is similar to a sensor acquisition device, as shown in the figure below, is some I / O control.
Interestingly, when the RGB LED operation is performed, there is no problem with the beginning, and then the brightness is adjusted, Bluetooth will always be lost.
I have encountered this problem in the first time, I associate this app has bug, but I tried a few times, I turned back to the state of the board, I found a bit of course, the conclusion is actually when the RGB LED is bright, because the current is too large, resulting in the board The button battery is inadequate and restarted, and there is no problem with the MicroSB interface power supply.
The functions used by the board are so much, and the self-contained sensors are quite a lot, but it is really a lot to play as a product, and this cannot be the focus of this board. What is the focus? Of course, the ultimate goal and significance of the Thunderboard Sense development board is still used to develop.
Sensor development board recommended:
The Lis3MDL evaluation board enables motion detection and positioning functions within a smartphone and personal navigation.
MPU-9250 9-AXIS development board A MotionTracking component, special, such as smart phones, tablets, wearing sensors, etc. must be low power, low cost, high performance Consumer Electronics Equipment Design.
MAX7667 Evaluation Kit A flight time ultrasonic ranging solution, combined with flexible electronic implementation and necessary intelligence to optimize each functional environment and target conditions.
Thunderboard Sense Hardware
Before the development, we must first understand the hardware resources of the next onboard. When it is true, the board uses all the available local layout devices as much as possible.
Click on the image to enlarge to view larger image
There is a saying that the board can be described. In addition to the sensor is a microcontroller, such a small board, there are 3 microcontrollers equipped, covering the three product lines of Silicon Labs, it is really a blood. .
EFR32 MIGHTY Gecko Multi-Protocol Wireless SOC
Among them, one-on-board core is a Silicon Labs EFR32 Mighty Gecko Labs EFR32 Mighty Gecko, which is low-power Bluetooth communication. This single-chip's wireless SOC product can support Zigbee, Thread and proprietary Agreement, but also based on the ARM Cortex-M4 processor, integrated DSP instruction set, and FPU unit, the maximum frequency is 40MHz, for a single-chip SOC applied to wireless communication, EFR32 mighty gecko represents a powerful collection of performance and functionality. body.
The EFR32 MIGHTY GECKO specific model equipped on the plate is EFR32MG1P132GG, which is encapsulated by QFN48. The size is only 7mm * 7mm, but the internal integration can, including ARM Cortex-M4 processor, power management, analog resources, and numbers. Set, radio frequency transceiver, etc. (specifically view official specifications), we see that the low-power Bluetooth circuit of EFR32 Mighty Gecko is very small, which is extremely useful for the site-sensitive applications. Friendly attributes, the following picture is the hardware system block diagram of this single-chip wireless SOC, and the function is at a glance.
Of course, as a low-power wireless single-chip SOC that can be functionally enabled, its price is not low, it is only afraid that the aristocratic enterprise is willing to choose, compare some common low-power Bluetooth programs on the market, if single Saying BLE, EFR32MG1 is not big, but if the performance and power consumption, the advantage is highlighted, this is concretely, after all, Thunderboard Sense is almost a fine change of power consumption. Not common.
Sensor development board recommended:
The Lis3MDL evaluation board enables motion detection and positioning functions within a smartphone and personal navigation.
MPU-9250 9-AXIS development board A MotionTracking component, special, such as smart phones, tablets, wearing sensors, etc. must be low power, low cost, high performance Consumer Electronics Equipment Design.
MAX7667 Evaluation Kit A flight time ultrasonic ranging solution, combined with flexible electronic implementation and necessary intelligence to optimize each functional environment and target conditions.
EFM8SB microcontroller
This is next to the Silicon Labs EFM8 SLEPY BEE microcontroller, but its role can be said to be a small use of large materials, and the core will use it for fine control of the board, and a microcontroller is only a sensor. The power supply and interrupt control are really unmanned.
However, there is only this kind of pursuit of the ultimate, paranoid application, in order to compete in low power generation, which may be a gap between good products and great products. Application of EFM8SB As shown in the figure below, the EFM8SB is used as a register interface that can be read and written by EFR32, and the power supply and interrupt of the control sensor and the RGB LED are implemented by the I2C bus.
EFM32 Giant Gecko Microcontroller
There is also a Silicon Labs EFM32 Giant GeCon Labs EFM32 Giant Gecko Microcontroller on the back of the board, and the specific model is an EFM32GG330F102 MCU, based on the ARM Cortex-M3 processor, the main frequency is 48MHz, which is mainly used for the SEGGER J-Link debugger for the onboard. Take a closer look at the specification, there is still 1MB flash resources, and it feels well here.
From these microcontrollers, we can also see that Silicon Labs's microcontrollers are biased to low-frequency, tend to low power applications. So if you intend to design low-power electronic product applications, you can consider the product of Silicon Labs.
In addition to these three different series of microcontrollers, the main six sensors on the board are:
Silicon Labs Si7021 Relative Humidity and Temperature Sensor
Silicon Labs Si1133 UV Index and Ambient Light Sensor
Bosch Sensortec BMP280 Pneumatic Sensor
Cambridge CCS811 Indoor Air Quality Gas Sensor
Invensense ICM-20648 six-axis inertial sensor
Knowles SPV1840 MEMS microphone
In addition, the development board has a compatible design of a magnetic induction sensor, but does not patch, it may be added in subsequent products.
The Thunderboard Sense development board also led other IO ports, and the detailed signal definitions are not described in the following figure.
Sensor development board recommended:
The Lis3MDL evaluation board enables motion detection and positioning functions within a smartphone and personal navigation.
MPU-9250 9-AXIS development board A MotionTracking component, special, such as smart phones, tablets, wearing sensors, etc. must be low power, low cost, high performance Consumer Electronics Equipment Design.
MAX7667 Evaluation Kit A flight time ultrasonic ranging solution, combined with flexible electronic implementation and necessary intelligence to optimize each functional environment and target conditions.
Thunderboard Sense Development
The Thunderboard Sense development board will inevitably be connected to the PC side, here there is a problem, when used in the beginning, the pavilion network engineer is operating directly using the button battery, then connect the PC terminal through the MicroSB cable. To unplug the button battery, if you don't take it, do you have any questions directly?
Thunderboard SENSE Power Supply System
It is necessary to figure out how the board is powered?
To be exact, Thunderboard Sense has four power supply, one is a button battery, one is a 2PIN external power supply interface (the signal is powered on the button battery, so the two interfaces cannot be supplied at the same time, as shown in the figure below), one is The MicroSB interface, as well as the onboard MINI SIMPLITY debugging power supply interface.
The MicroSB interface is automatically switched with the button battery power. When it is detected that the connection to the Microusb interface is powered, it will automatically switch to the power supply, so it will not have an impact on the button battery. Also, the Mini SIMPLITY debugging power supply interface is directly for the MCU for 3.3V voltage, so it cannot be powered with the MicroSB interface, so that the author does not have the Mini SIMPLICITY debugger, so there is no concern.
After engaged in hardware connection, you need to choose the development environment. As a self-reliant Silicon Labs, there is your own specialized development tool Simplicity Studio4.
IDE download address: https://www.silabs.com/products/development-tools/software/sImplicity-studio
Interestingly, this IDE tool actually facing 3 major mainstream systems, Windows, Mac, and Linux, the installed completed interface makes people have a familiar feeling, from the interface, it is based on open source Eclipse design, familiarity Non-engineers using Eclipse IdeOften friendly.
Sensor development board recommended:
The Lis3MDL evaluation board enables motion detection and positioning functions within a smartphone and personal navigation.
MPU-9250 9-AXIS development board A MotionTracking component, special, such as smart phones, tablets, wearing sensors, etc. must be low power, low cost, high performance Consumer Electronics Equipment Design.
MAX7667 Evaluation Kit A flight time ultrasonic ranging solution, combined with flexible electronic implementation and necessary intelligence to optimize each functional environment and target conditions.
Do you have a dedicated IDE tool? For small white users, it is the most intimate, there is a special step to guide you how to use, such as a special Getting Started, document, compatible tool, etc. If you want to controversial, for China's users, full English Documentation Description is not friendly, of course, a dedicated IDE tool is still closer to users compared to third-party tools used in the same first time.
For example, you connect the Thunderboard Sense development board to the PC side. When you correctly install the driver (you will prompt the drive when you install SIMPLICITY STUDIO4, the default installation is available), and the J-Link correctly connected prompts are automatically displayed in the IDE tool.
For Thunderboard Sense development, we need to update the Bluetooth SDK, but you need to register login before this.
Why do you want to log in?
Because not logging in, don't let you download SDK ... (uppercase)
The official provides a lot of SDK to facilitate user development. The author will download the content of the wireless MCU will be nearly 4GB of space. If all download it is, it is conceivable. Thunderboard Sense Development Board provides multiple routines for user testing, routine tests are OK, users can use directly, or modify the corresponding functionality based on their needs on the routine.
Compile
debugging
download
Under the path to the routine, we can find the source code of the routine, there is an IAR development tool based project project, and we can also develop through third-party IAR development tools, which don't want to use the Simplicity Studio4 IDE tool. Users have a variety of options.
summary
First of all, you must admit that Thunderboard Sense is a strive-stricken Internet of Things development board, it is very good!
A plate covers multiple product line series, with ARM Cortex-M4 EFR32 wireless SOC, with ARM Cortex-M3 EFM32 microcontroller, with 8051 EFM8 ultra low power MCU and 6 different Sensor, so many microcontroller clusters only build Thunderboard Sense into an ultra-low power consumption, develop a convenient physical network sensor kit, to pursue fine power consumption, in design, excellence, through a single EFM8 The MCU is used as a sensor power supply and interrupt control. This is not considerable, and it is a program that is rarely adopted in domestic enterprises.
Therefore, although the Thunderboard Sense design is very good, for the domestic, for most civilian, the price-effective design company, the price of the entire program is like the BUG, and the product plan with Silicon Lab is not rich in the country. Reference scenarios, no matter from R & D, production, to subsequent supply chain stability is worth exploring, it can be said that this is an aristocrat + great enterprise will go, and civilian design companies can detour.
Finally, there is a good news. The Site Electronic Zhigang Innovation Design Competition starting immediately will provide the application of 36 US $ Thunderboard Sense development kit. You have a board to send, please look forward!
Sensor development board recommended:
The Lis3MDL evaluation board enables motion detection and positioning functions within a smartphone and personal navigation.
MPU-9250 9-AXIS development board A MotionTracking component, special, such as smart phones, tablets, wearing sensors, etc. must be low power, low cost, high performance Consumer Electronics Equipment Design.
MAX7667 Evaluation Kit A flight time ultrasonic ranging solution, combined with flexible electronic implementation and necessary intelligence to optimize each functional environment and target conditions. "
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