BADGER-SIM3L1-EK Silicon Labs

AN757 SiM3L1XX BADGER BOARD USERS GUIDE 1. Introduction The Badger Board is controlled by Silicon Labs SiM3L1xx, an ultra low-power Cortex-M3 microcontroller. The entire board is powered solely by a small supercapacitor and demonstrates best-in-class low-power operation. The board can remain running with the LCD enabled for days from as little as a 90-second charge and, under typical use, can last up to a week from a three to five minute charge. Figure 1 shows the SiM3L1xx Badger Board. Figure 1. SiM3L1xx Badger Board The SiM3L1xx MCU has the following key power specs: 175 A/MHz active mode operation 950 nA supply current with LCD and contrast control enabled Segment resetting achieves 40 percent reduction in LCD load current 300 nA supply current with RTC in Crystal Mode 180 nA supply current with RTC in LFO Mode 75 nA supply current in Power Mode 8 The Silicon Labs Precision32 SiM3L1xx 32-bit MCUs are ideal candidates for ultra low-power system designs. In addition to providing an evaluation platform for ultra low-power LCD-based designs, the SiM3L1xx Badger Board serves as a lower-cost, general-purpose development platform for the SiM3L1xx MCUs. 2. Relevant Documents This document provides a hardware and software overview for the SiM3L1xx Badger Board. Additional documentation on the Precision32 tools and MCUs can be found on the following Silicon Labs web sites: www.silabs.com/32bit-appnotes www.silabs.com/32bit-software www.silabs.com/32bit-mcu Rev. 0.2 2/13 Copyright 2013 by Silicon Laboratories AN757AN757 3. Hardware Setup Connect the badger board to a USB port on the PC using the USB extender cable shown in Figure 2. Once the board is plugged in, the blue LED (DS9) will turn on indicating that the badger board is ready for use. Figure 2. USB Extension Cable 4. Firmware Update To ensure that the badger board has the latest firmware, it is recommended to perform a firmware update. The firmware update utility is installed by default at the following location: C: Silabs Reference Designs BadgerBoard Utilities FlashProgrammer update firmware.bat Double-click on the batch file to update firmware. Figure 3 shows a screen capture of a successful firmware update. Figure 3. Successful Firmware Update 2 Rev. 0.2