Home Brew AUGUST 2014
 System Taps
Atmel at
White House
IoT
Ayla Makes
Connection with IoT
Your Guide to Embedded MCUs and Development Tools. Everything you’re looking for in one place.
w w w. e m b e d d e d d e v e l o p e r. c o m
CONTENTS
PRESENTER Luis Torrico is a Convergence Promotions FAE, specializing in technical support for the embedded modules division. Luis Torrico has also worked as director of engineering for an embedded modules design and manufacturing company based in Rhode Island for 10 years. Q&A Wolfgang Heinz-Fischer is the head of marketing for TQ Systems in Germany. He has worked for some of the industry’s leading board manufacturers and is an acclaimed speaker and author of numerous whitepapers and technical articles on embedded modules, standards, and the industry.
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TECH ARTICLE
Buy Vs. Build Calculator TQMA28
Atmel Shows American Pride at the White House Maker Faire
Attend this webinar and receive a free, downloadable version of the calculator!
?
“Today’s DIY is tomorrow’s ‘Made in America,’” President Obama proclaimed in his opening remarks at the White House Maker Faire in June of 2014. With the rise of open-source hardware like the Arduino Uno, the limits of innovation, manufacturing, and technology have become boundless. To commemorate the
Take This Quiz
UPCOMING EVENTS • Are you pressured to develop a new product in a hurry? • Do you find increased performance and demands for lower design and manufacturing costs challenging? • Can your engineering resources be freed up? • Do you know how to calculate costs of building an integrated design or buying an off-the-shelf solution? • Does the right OS have the BSPs needed?
Banana Pi rise in DIY innovation, the White House sponsored its first-ever Maker Faire in Washington DC and invited makers of all ages
from around the country to show off their innovations. Projects
ranged from robotic giraffes to a mobile 3D printing fab lab—all of them demonstrated for President Barack Obama himself.
The New of Listen, Watch, Ask,Age Learn Single-Board Computers
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Join this webinar and learn how to use the electronics, or computing in general in the past several innovative Buy Vs. years, Buildthen Calculator you probablyto: have used the Raspberry Pi.
FEATURED ARTICLE
It is a wonderful, little piece of hardware that can help
learn how to code. At least, that was the intended • Speed time toyou market use of the resources Raspberry Pi. With advanced knowledge • Free up engineering about electronics and coding, the Raspberry • Lower development and manufacturing costsPi can be
turned into more than a coding tutorial. This powerful piece of hardware can be converted into a weather station, a retrogaming device or a touchscreen tablet.
Banana Pi: The New Age of Single-Board Computers The Pi does this by boasting a 700 MHz processor, 512MB SDRAM, and a dual-core multimedia co-processor. These components allow the Raspberry Pi to be a great
DESIGN CONTESTS Contestants Design to Win
COVER ARTICLE
Ayla Design Kit System Taps
IoT
with Murata Wi-Fi Connectivity Module
Murata Wi-Fi his module with pers are able to vice and quickly hings (IoT).
4
With Murata Wi-Fi Connectivity Module
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A BeagleBone Black could be used, or the Raspberry Pi could be upgraded.
TECH WATCH Home Brew
gn Kit
10
embedded single-board computer. But, what if a project required more processing power and more data storage?
Home Brew System Taps IoT Home brewer Michael ImObersteg
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20 24 30 3
Atmel
Shows American Pride at the
White House
Maker Faire At the heart of the maker movement, Atmel joins gathering of innovators from across the country.
By Alex Maddalena, Contributing Writer
4
TECH ARTICLE
“Today’s DIY is tomorrow’s ‘Made in America,’” President Obama proclaimed in his opening remarks at the White House Maker Faire in June of 2014. With the rise of open-source hardware like the Arduino Uno, the limits of innovation, manufacturing, and technology have become boundless. To commemorate the rise in DIY innovation, the White House sponsored its first-ever Maker Faire in Washington DC and invited makers of all ages from around the country to show off their innovations. Projects ranged from robotic giraffes to a mobile 3D printing fab lab—all of them demonstrated for President Barack Obama himself.
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T
Arduino boards for makers
hese makers, as well as makers across the globe, have embraced the easy-to-use hardware and software of the Arduino platform, based on Atmel 8-bit (AVR) or a 32-bit (ARMbased) microcontrollers (MCU). Cited for their ease-of-use, low-power, and high-performance capabilities, the Atmel AVR MCUs have enabled designers, inventors, and even school children to learn and innovate at a previously unheard of level. Atmel’s connection with the Arduino boards earned them an invitation to this year’s Maker Faire to see the variety of projects their MCUs have powered. EEWeb spoke with Sander Arts, vice president of marketing at Atmel, about his experience at the White House and how being involved in the maker community will enable the next generation of entrepreneurs.
CROWD-FUNDED, PRESIDENT-APPROVED “When Atmel was invited to the White House Maker Faire, we were obviously excited,” Arts said, then added, “Atmel has always celebrated the makers, so to be acknowledged as being at the heart of the maker movement has been big for us.” The focus on the maker movement began when Atmel saw a surge of new projects online, ranging from hobbyists engineers to large tech companies who developed innovative technology using the inexpensive Arduino platform.
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“Atmel has always celebrated the makers, so to be acknowledged as being at the heart of the maker movement has been big for us.”
With the rise of Kickstarter campaigns and other crowd-funded tech projects, Atmel embraced the ever-growing DIY community as the new frontier for tech innovation. Part of that community and invited to the White House Maker Faire were Quin Etnyre and Sylvia Todd (aka Super Awesome Sylvia). These two 12-year olds (yes, 12) have both made a mark on the maker community and came to the White House under the Atmel flag. Etnyre is the founder and CEO of Qtechknow, a company devoted to supplying Adruino-related kits for tinkering and learning, while Super Awesome Sylvia hosts her own YouTube show dedicated to DIY tech projects. “30 years ago, you had to be an electrical engineer in order to do something with hardware,” Arts remarked. “Nowadays, we have 12-year-old entrepreneurs developing projects with Arduino boards and presenting them at the White House.”
TECH ARTICLE
Arduino starter kit
While these projects stood out for their innovative merits alone, many were celebrated for linking their projects to the job market. President Obama noted the projects that took advantage of 3D printing and commented that the success of such products would help return manufacturing to U.S. shores. However humble the roots of these projects, whether garage or classroom made, they held the potential to have a positive impact on the U.S. economy not unlike that of the first Apple computer Steve Wozniak built in his garage.
“Cited for their ease-of-use, low-power, and high-performance capabilities, the AVR MCUs have enabled designers, inventors, and even school children to learn and innovate at a level that has never before been seen.�
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NEW FRONTIERS In today’s ever-changing tech industry, it’s not uncommon to find a new connected device whose developers are unsure of the product’s use. The most popular example of this is the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT). While there are a plethora of interconnected devices on the market today, tech companies and analysts still struggle to envision exactly how the IoT will take shape. “About 50 percent of the companies that are going to be a part of the IoT are companies that don’t exist today,” Arts explained. Conceivably, someone in a garage developing a smart weather meter with an Arduino and sensors may be the next big thing in the tech industry. Arts also noted that there have been 160 companies
started on Arduinos that were launched on Kickstarter, and 103 of them were successfully funded. “103 companies started on Atmel chips and that’s a significant number for us,” Arts concluded, “which is why we chose to take an active part in the maker community.” For Atmel, the White House Maker Faire is just the beginning. The company’s next step is to continue to build an audience through social media platforms. In fact, Atmel boasts one of the largest social media footprints of any semiconductor company. As a result, Atmel is poised to engage with makers who promise to be the future of emerging tech markets.
“103 companies started on Atmel chips, and that’s a significant number.”
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Find us at Booth #37310
World Maker Faire New York
Buy a Module or Build Your Own
INTEGRATED DESIGN?
Webinar on How to Calculate Cost of Buying Versus Designing from Scratch OVERVIEW New product features, certification, increased performance and quicker design cycles are pressuring device manufacturers to reduce costs and still meet their time-to-market requirements. One option is using MCU-based modules with production-ready BSPs to possibly eliminate development time and save on design and manufacturing costs. This webinar will show you how to use the Buy Vs. Build online calculator to help navigate steps and costs involved with building the project. The following topics are handled: • Concept, selecting memory, interfaces, certification • Hardware design, reviews, documentation • Layout design, test points, autorouting • Initial prototyping, BOM costs, test tools • Software design, BSP and OS selection, validation • Preproduction qualification, testing • Manufacturing costs • Risk, investment and lifecycle management
TAKE AWAY At the completion of this 30-minute free webinar, you will emerge with the knowledge to accurately calculate whether to buy an embedded module or build an integrated system in-house. Plus, you can download the calculator on your computer as a free gift from us for attending!
WHO SHOULD ATTEND Firmware developers Software developers Engineering managers Purchasing managers Distributor, VAR and supplier FAEs & sales reps
OCTOBER 30, 2014
9:00 AM PDT / 12:00 PM EDT / 16:00 GMT / 17:00 CET
CLICK TO REGISTER The Buy Vs. Build webinar is a presentation of Convergence Promotions, Freescale and TQ Systems. Copyright 2014, Convergence Promotions
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UPCOMING EVENTS PRESENTER Luis Torrico is a Convergence Promotions FAE, specializing in technical support for the embedded modules division. Luis Torrico has also worked as director of engineering for an embedded modules design and manufacturing company based in Rhode Island for 10 years. Q&A Wolfgang Heinz-Fischer is the head of marketing for TQ Systems in Germany. He has worked for some of the industry’s leading board manufacturers and is an acclaimed speaker and author of numerous whitepapers and technical articles on embedded modules, standards, and the industry.
Buy Vs. Build Calculator TQMA28
Attend this webinar and receive a free, downloadable version of the calculator!
?
Take This Quiz • Are you pressured to develop a new product in a hurry? • Do you find increased performance and demands for lower design and manufacturing costs challenging? • Can your engineering resources be freed up? • Do you know how to calculate costs of building an integrated design or buying an off-the-shelf solution? • Does the right OS have the BSPs needed? Join this webinar and learn how to use the innovative Buy Vs. Build Calculator to: • Speed time to market • Free up engineering resources • Lower development and manufacturing costs
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Connecting Global Competence
Tickets & Registration www.electronica.de/en/tickets
26th International Trade Fair for Electronic Components, Systems, and Applications. Messe München November 11–14, 2014 www.electronica.de
50 years
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Banana Pi
By Rob Riemen
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TECH ARTICLE
The New Age of Single-Board Computers
I
f you have been interested in programming, electronics, or computing in general in the past several years, then you probably have used the Raspberry Pi. It is a wonderful, little piece of hardware that can help you learn how to code. At least, that was the intended use of the Raspberry Pi. With advanced knowledge about electronics and coding, the Raspberry Pi can be turned into more than a coding tutorial. This powerful piece of hardware can be converted into a weather station, a retrogaming device or a touchscreen tablet. The Pi does this by boasting a 700 MHz processor, 512MB SDRAM, and a dual-core multimedia co-processor. These components allow the Raspberry Pi to be a great embedded single-board computer. But, what if a project required more processing power and more data storage? A BeagleBone Black could be used, or the Raspberry Pi could be upgraded.
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“Having a dual-core processor gives the Banana Pi twice the processing power of the original Raspberry Pi.”
I
t takes a lot of experience to design a circuit board. It takes even more knowledge to be able spin the board, meaning to design and produce a physical copy of a circuit board. So, performing electronic surgery on the Raspberry Pi to upgrade the components is not recommended. Lemaker has taken the difficulty of upgrading the circuit board to create what is called the Banana Pi. The Banana Pi has very similar architecture to the Raspberry Pi except that it is fitted with an AllWinner A20 SoC, which runs at 1GHz and 1GB DDR3 SDRAM. The AllWinner processor is actually an A20 ARM® Cortex™-A7 dual core.
So what makes the AllWinner A20 SoC so special? It’s the first dual-core ARM A7 chip. As is the case with modern computer processors, multiple cores help with multitasking. Multiple applications can send and receive data at once, giving the user more power over the tasks a user is planning to accomplish with a project. The ARM A7 processor supports integer division through it’s own hardware instruction. In other ARM based processors, integer division is calculated through software. With the integer division in hardware, this frees up memory space from software instructions allowing the processor to function more effectively. The ARM A7 processor Having a dual-core also has 40-bit memory processor gives the Banana addressing. This allows Pi twice the processing power the processor more C o S of the original Raspberry bandwidth to access the er A20 lWinn l A Pi. The dual core gives the computer primary storage. operating system the illusion This increase in bit addressing allows the that the computer has two 1GHz processor to complete more tasks in a processors. All of those projects that you shorter amount of time. could not accomplish with the Raspberry Pi because of computing power? The Along with a beefier processor, the worry can be eliminated with the Banana Allwinner A20 SoC comes with an Pi. The AllWinner A20 SoC can more than accelerated graphics processing unit make up for the lack of processing power. (GPU). This GPU follows along in Along with this powerful processor, the the footsteps of the main processor Banana Pi allows for a 64GB SD card, and sports a dual-core Mali 400MP2 giving the user the ability to store much graphical unit. Along with dual cores, the more data. These improvements make Mali 400MP2 has 256 KiB of level 2 cache. the Banana Pi a manageable upgrade for This allows for greater storage of recently an asking price of $50. accessed information, as this is how
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TECH ARTICLE Banana Pi
“With this technology, a graphical user interface (GUI) will load very quickly, graphical engines will process more efficiently, and movies or images will load with a higher definition.�
Image courtesy of www.lemaker.org
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the level 2 cache is used. This transfers into faster computing, and in terms of graphical displays, this means the faster rendering of computing intensive graphical units. With this technology, a graphical user interface (GUI) will load very quickly, graphical engines will process more efficiently, and movies or images will load with a higher definition. This GPU was built for the accelerated creation of objects on a screen. With this design, the user is able to run an operating system such as Android or Ubuntu without any of the hiccups that may come with a slower GPU. Now, what can you do with a little bit more processing power, more RAM, and more storage space? Actually,
quite a bit. What use to be a weather station, a retrogaming device, and a touchscreen tablet can become a fullfledge multimedia PC, a general purpose computer, or a modern gaming device. The specs of the Raspberry Pi are no longer limiting. The Banana Pi comes with all of the standard peripherals that a Raspberry Pi has, such as HDMI out, 10/100/1000 Ethernet out, audio out, and GPIO headers. With such a board, you can turn your home into the Internet of things. By adding sensors in various rooms, and a Banana Pi interfaced to the sensors, you can create a life that is connected to the Internet. This will help you remember your habits, assist with daily functions,
Banana Pi versus Raspberry Pi
“By adding sensors in various rooms and a Banana Pi interfaced to the sensors, you can create a life that is connected to the Internet.�
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TECH ARTICLE “The Banana Pi builds on the famous Raspberry Pi, to create a fast, yet inexpensive solution for many electronic projects that need intensive computing.” and make life easier in general. All this is possible because Banana Pi’s advanced technology. Along with advanced projects, the Banana Pi can run many of today’s modern operating systems. With the addition of a touchscreen, or even a regular monitor, the Banana Pi can fly through operating systems such as Android 4.4 KitKat, Ubuntu 13.01 or even a multimedia OS such as XBMC. But, many of the Banana Pi’s features are comparable to other cutting edge singleboard computers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Fxstation. Front of Banana Pi. Digital image. Wikipedia. Wiki, 3 Apr. 2014. Web. 4 June 2014. Jwrodgers. Raspberry Pi. Digital image. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 20 July 2012. Web. 4 June 2014. Popolon. Allwinner A20. Digital image. SUNXI. Linux-Sunxi, 14 Sept. 2013. Web. 4 June 2014.
With all of the single-board computers coming out at Maker’s Fair, at Consumer Electronics Show, and across the Internet, it is hard to find one that will be perfect for any project. The Banana Pi builds on the famous Raspberry Pi, to create a fast, yet inexpensive solution for many electronic projects that need intensive computing. This is all possible because the Banana Pi is an open source. Being one of the first boards to use a dual-core processor, the Banana Pi leads the way into the development of faster and more inexpensive single-board computers. Dual core makes it possible to accomplish many more tasks that the Raspberry Pi cannot. The next generation of singleboard computers is here, and the Banana Pi is leading the way.
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AXP Logic
2014
Design Contest
Announcing the
WINNERS GRAND PRIZE
Clemens Valens Multipurpose PWM Wave Shaper
FIRST PLACE
E
ngineers all over the world participated in our AXP Logic contest. In January 2014, we asked contestants to use our new AXP1G57 low-power, configurable, multiple-function logic gate as a design platform. Completed entries submitted before the closing deadline had the opportunity to win one of several prizes. Contestants were requested to go to the AXP Design Contest landing page on EEWeb, answering some industry survey questions on their use of logic devices. After contestants fulfilled this requirement, we would then ship a free 3.5 by 4 inch AXP1G57GM eval board with four configurable logic devices, on-board power supply decoupling, and the ability to configure each of four AXP1G57 devices in one of seven unique functions. Full documentation and design tips were provided, along with online design support. The contest was also promoted at the Embedded World event in February 2014.
Ryszard Milewicz Light Sensor and Photosound
SECOND PLACE
Monte Chan Wide Voltage Range Inductorless LED Driver
THIRD PLACE
A. Youssef Dry Soil and High Temperature Circuit Warning
HONORABLE MENTION
HONORABLE MENTION
Robert Kong
Yuri Tikhonov
Wireless Sensors Using NXP 74AXP1G57 Devices
A Smarter nanoRobot
RELATED LINKS Configurable gates category page
The contest ran for six months and garnered some impressive stats and even greater results. Just over 650 people registered online and a number of excellent designs were submitted. The eventual winners are listed on the right.
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AXP family category page
DESIGN CONTESTS
New AX P low-p ower log stimulat ic es engin eer ’s high-po wered c reativity
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Download the Contest Winners’ Work (click on the image above)
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Design with
Freedom! It’s easy to join and easy to win – Get ready to experience real design freedom!
Join Digi-Key, Freescale, and ARM in the 2014 European Freedom Design Contest Experience the latest in low-cost tool options from Industry leaders and enter to win thousands of Euros in prizes!
REGISTER NOW
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DESIGN CONTESTS
Phase I – Conceptual Design (6 May 2014 to 10 October 2014) Phase I – Best Hardware and Software Submission: an Apple® iPad Air valued at no more than €489. Phase I - Second Place Prize: an Apple® iPad Mini valued at no more than €399. Phase I – Three Honorable Mention Prizes: an Apple® iPod touch valued at no more than €249.
Phase II – Hardware and Software Design (1 July 2014 to 10 October 2014) Phase II – Best Hardware and Software Submission: a football table valued at no more than €1,500. Phase II - Second Place Prize: a Jura espresso machine valued at no more than €1,000. Phase II - Honorable Mention Prize: a bicycle valued at no more than €750.
Contest winners will be announced November 11, 2014
*
The Freescale Semiconductor Freedom Development Platform is a small, low-power, cost-effective evaluation and development system perfect for quick application prototyping and demonstration of Kinetis MCU families. The platform offers an easy-to-use mass-storage device mode flash programmer, a virtual serial port and classic programming and run-control capabilities. For more information on Freescale Freedom Development Platforms: http://www.digikey.com/product-high-lights/us/en/ freescale-freedom-development-platform/3851
23
Home Brew
By Suzanne Touchette Kelso Contributing Writer
24
COVER ARTICLE
System
Taps
IoT T
he time-honored craft of home brewing only gets better with the introduction of electronics. Find out how a DIYer improved his beer by using the popular Arduino module.
25
W
ork remotely, turn lights on remotely, and now, brew beer remotely thanks to the Arduino module. Using this microcontroller module along with a variety of electronics components, home brewer Michael ImObersteg put together a brew system that allows him to monitor his tanks from miles away. ImObersteg, who started making beer in college, developed a sophisticated electronics brewing system that is hassle free. “Brewing can be very hands-on, messy, and time consuming,” he notes, “so I wanted to streamline the process.” ImObersteg started his new brew system with the Arduino-based BrewTroller, which controls everything from volumes to temperatures, to analog or digital inputs, to valves and more. “I also used a Raspberry Pi,” tells ImObersteg, “and this powers a touchscreen monitor which is connected to the Internet.” In this way, he can remotely access the web-based GUI on the BrewTroller to control the brewery. “No matter where I am in the world,” remarks ImObersteg, “I can check in on the brewing process and control what’s going on with the batch at hand.” Because most of the brewing is done outside, conditions can suddenly change. “A flame on the burner can go out,”
ImObersteg explains, “or the temperature can shift. I can access all this information and make adjustments through my phone.” Not only do ImObersteg’s brew-system electronics allow for remote access when conditions change, but because it’s paired with an E-Stop module which reads the Arduino board, the system will drop into standby mode and come to a complete stop if something goes awry. At that point all valves close, all pumps stop, and all burners turn off. Honeywell intermittent pilots receive feedback from the system and burner, so if the burner isn’t lighting, the operation shuts down. Freescale pressure sensors attached to a pump measure the pressure in each tank. This information is used to determine the number of gallons per tank. “I’m always testing, checking, and measuring throughout the process,” says ImObersteg, “because consistency is important in order to get the finishedproduct volume the same for each batch.” While some might want a total brew experience of being elbow-deep in hops and barley, ImObersteg is content with letting his electronics system handle the tedious part of brewing. This leaves him more time for the enjoyable part of crafting beer—the tasting.
“I can check on the brewing process from anywhere in the world and control what’s going on with the batch at hand.”
26
COVER ARTICLE
Brew
Tech Tools Check out the various tech devices in Michael ImObersteg’s brewing system: Arduino Microcontroller Custom module running BrewTroller firmware. • DE v1.0.5-r2 supports ATMEGA 1284P • Atmel 8-bit AVR RISC-based microcontroller • 128KB flash, 4KB EEPROM, 16KB SRAM
Raspberry Pi Model B used as touchscreen interface for Internet connection and for GUI. • Ethernet port in conjunction with NETGEAR adapter • 2 USB ports, HDMI
Freescale Pressure Sensor Used to detect amount of liquid in tanks. • MPX5010DP with 1.45PSI pressure range • Integrated silicon sensor • On-chip signal conditioning
Capacitive Touchscreen Displays data and connects to Internet. • 10” screen with LCD IPS technology • HDMI-LVD board powering Raspberry Pi • Ambient light sensor for LCD control
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iKeg Senses
Keg Content Home brewers may want to know how much beer is in their tanks as part of the brewing process, but barkeepers have a different motivation for keeping tabs on quantity. They want to ensure an adequate supply of popular drafts and avoid having kegs of expired beer. Bartenders often use a simple method to determine volume; they just shake a keg. For those who don’t want to do the shake, craft-brew aficionados and software guys Steve Hershberger and Steve Kremer teamed up to develop an online system for calculating beer volume in kegs. The two called their beer brain, “iKeg.” This inventory management system tracks information such as how much beer remains in a keg, when the keg will empty, when another delivery is planned, and so on. The iKeg system relies on a sensor, which includes a Freescale MC13224V microcontroller in the bottom of the keg. A RFID tag on the keg handle uses a 13.56MHz inlay to obtain data from the sensor. Then the data is transmitted using ZigBee.
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Ayla Design Kit T
he Ayla Design Kit features a Murata Wi-Fi connectivity module. By utilizing this module with the embedded Ayla agent, developers are able to connect products to the Ayla cloud service and quickly create applications for the Internet of Things (IoT).
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TECH WATCH
With Murata Wi-Fi Connectivity Module
31
Hardware 1 2
3
1
32
Ayla Development Board
2
Murata Wi-Fi Module
3
STM32F Discovery Board
TECH WATCH
Specs The Murata type YD certified module equips developers with a precertified, fully integrated 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi module based on Broadcom’s BCM43362 chipset and an ST Micro STM32 ARM Cortex-M3 MCU. Wi-Fi and transmission control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP) network stacks, security features, and other network application software are preloaded on the module. The type YD module has universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART), and serial peripheral interface (SPI). In addition, it can be used as a simple serial-to-Wi-Fi connectivity solution in any application using those interfaces. The Murata module with Ayla’s embedded agent enables connection to Ayla’s platform, an end-to-end connectivity solution for IoT applications with the ability to remotely monitor performance and diagnostic information and as well as deploy firmware upgrades from computers and mobile devices. Prototyping with the kit can be done with the on-board STM32F discovery development board, or by connecting your microcontroller (MCU) to the SPI or UART headers.
Watch Video To watch a video overview and demonstration on use of the Ayla Design Kit, click the image below:
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M o v i n g To w a r d s a
David Elien VP of Marketing & Business Development, Cree, Inc.
Clean Energy
Let There Be
LIGHT
FUTURE
How Cree reinvented the light bulb
— Hugo van Nispen, COO of DNV KEMA
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