Microcontroller Embedded Design: November 2013

AVR32 Module e-Gizmo

Introductions:

Hello Dabarkads;maybe a week ago or so that our familiar local geek's store (e-Gizmo) had cooked another gadget for us -a considerable cheap,powerful and fast MCU which has a promising wide applications.This is an AVR32 (AT32UC3L0128) with 50MHZ clock,SPI,I2C,128KB(Flash) and more in a sort dongle type of modular package .So let's again give some important tips & tricks of creating a gcc IDE using an Eclipse development environment. This post in my blog details the steps used to get gcc running in our own workspace. Unfortunately, setting up Eclipse as an environment to develop gcc is non-tasky. To tell you folks, having a GUI to some CLI based compilers such as SDCC,GCC/G++ (Unix) ,C/C++ is not any more a problem or hinder to simulate our code instead of a console interface. In this scratch article ,running the source program in an Atmel variants and other brand of MCUs could be made possible using eclipse IDE as a slight editor.We will discuss here the customization of an Eclipse C/C++ environment as a requirements of compiling source code fitted in our AVR32 board. An Eclipse editor needs an installed Atmel GNU tool chain: avrdude,avr32-gcc,avr-gcc and other required libraries to run/compile code in AVR32.

There are miscellaneous software programmer for AVR32 module:(1) Flexible In-system Programmer version III or FLIP3 (flip.3.x.xx.tar.gz) bundled with batchISP as tool to program parts containing an embedded Atmel ISP. This software has a version for both Linux and Windows OS See this article for further technical details: (1) http://datasheet.octopart.com/ATEVK1101-Atmel-datasheet-166485.pdf.(2)http://www.atmel.com/Imag /avr32studio_release_notea_2.6.0.pdf‎.

While in Linux ,(2) we can use DFU programmer as a replacement for FLIP3 in windows as well. It is a command line tool for for the flash memory on Atmel AVRs:AVR , AVR32 and 8051 based micro controllers which ship with a USB boot loader. Though DFU programmer is a command line tool it is very easy to install and use.Here is some further infos about DFU: (1) http://linux.die.net/man/1/dfu-programmer (2)http://www.technoburst.net/2013/04/atmel-dfu-programmer-tutorial-for-linux.html

Hence ,we only need an AVR32 module connected to our PC via USB-Serial interface-that's all our simple development for now.

Note:
All these utilities are free to download and can be run in Linux.

The author would like to acknowledge Sir Henry of e-Gizmo store for the samples of AVR32 module.Thank you very much Sir Henry & e-Gizmo staffs pinoy geeks owe alot of priceless stuffs from your company-Mabuhay! Kudos! Aja!

Objectives:
1) To create gcc IDE for AVR32 by using C/C++ Eclipse editor
2) To learn how-to program (compile,flash,fuse,boot-load) in an ATmel AVR32
3) To explore the potential use of AVR32 for variety of embedded applications

Requirements:

Hardware:
USB to Serial converter
e-Gizmo AVR32 module (http://www.e-gizmo.com/KIT/AVR32.html)

Software:
Linux OS : Ubunto /Fedora 1X

AVR32 plugin (UC32XX,AVR32 GNU tool chain,batchISP and more)
http://distribute.atmel.no/tools/avr32studio/releases/latest/

AVR32 GNU Tool chain (32/64 bit Linux)
http://www.atmel.com/tools/ATMELAVRTOOLCHAINFORLINUX.aspx
JAVA SDK Environment -installable in Linux Shell

Eclipse
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/release/galileo/r

FLIP3
http://www.atmel.com/tools/flip.aspx
http://www.atmel.com/Images/flip_linux_3-2-1.tgz

DFU
http://nchc.dl.sourceforge.net/project/dfu-programmer/dfu-programmer/0.5.4/dfu-programmer-0.5.4.tar.gz

Miscellaneous Documents
http://www.atmel.com/devices/at32uc3l0128.aspx?tab=documents

Methodology:
1) Install avr-gcc compiler and other libraries
root@localhost# yum install gcc-avr avr-libc avrdude

2)Installing DFU programmer
root@localhost# yum install dfu-programmer

3) Install Java SDK
root@localhost# sudo apt-get install openjdk*

4) Download and install the Eclipse editor
root@localhost# sudo apt-get install eclipse-platform eclipse-jdt eclipse-cdt

5) Download and install AVR32 plugin
Click "Window" -> "Install Software" ->

6) Configure AVR32 (AT) setting in the GCC-IDE

7) Create a simple circuit configuration for the AVR32 module

8) Compile and run the program

9) Load the code in the AVR32 board

10) Test the expected output of the code in the AVR32 circuit

Details:

Detail(1) AVR32 GNU tool chain