StackFoundry would like to announce the first of our upcoming development boards based upon the Energy Micro EFM32 “Gecko” series of processors. The Gecko series are the lowest power microcontrollers available on the market, across all 8, 16 and 32-bit products.
The EFM32 is a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 core, running at up to 32MHz. Depending on the series, run-mode power consumption varies from 150µA to 200µA per MHz, with sleep currents as low as 20nA to 900nA (with a real 32kHz timer running, not just a real time clock). It includes numerous exciting low power peripherals such as a 150nA UART, autonomous pulse and inductive, resistive and capacitative sensor interfaces, integrated op-amps, 12-bit ADC and DACs, and more.
We also feel it is one the easiest to use Cortex-M3 microcontrollers, with the provided libraries and application notes.
Our first development board is based on the EFM32 “Tiny Gecko” EFM32TG110 processor in a tiny 24-pin DIP form factor (similar to our AVR32 Copper design). Features include:
- 24-pin 0.6inch DIP formfactor
- Optional 32kHz crystal on board
- 0.05 inch pitch 10 pin Cortex-M debug port with serial wire debug (SWD) and serial wire output (SWO)
- Programming over the integrated Gecko boot loader using two GPIO pins (with a USB->serial breakout), with provided buttons on the board to enter boot mode
We feel this board is a perfect development tool for hobbyist projects running on batteries, and as a perfect add-on to Energy Micro’s EFM32 Tiny Gecko starter kit as your design goes to the prototype phase.
Target price is $25. Availability by end of January, 2012.
This looks great, I haven’t seen many third-party dev-kits for the efm32 yet. Any chance you could make a QFN/QFP 64 version as well with the giant gecko?
@Anders: It is in the plans, at least for a QFN64 variant. Form-factor is yet to be fixed though – if you have any suggestions it would be great to hear them.
It would be really cool with something that uses the USB-functionality of the leopard or giant gecko. Maybe a board that can be completely self sufficient and take advantage of the 3.3V usb regulator built into the new efm32 chip-families. Maybe also use some sort of USB-bootloader to upload new code. Using a USB-bootloader directly would make the usb->serial cable unnecessary.
I must admit I actually work for EM myself as an app-engineer, I’ve always been interested in the hobbyist-side of things and I especially enjoy seeing new boards that make advanced mcu’s available to the hacker-crowd out there.
Best of luck!
-Anders