Future Electronics’ new EM Mini-Blox board carries the MCF51EM256 variant of the device, which offers 256kB of Flash. The Crossbow host board provides a system environment in which to interface the device to a glass LCD and to ZigBee, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radio modules. When hosted on Crossbow, the EM Mini-Blox also has access to I2C, SCI, SPI, USB 2.0 and CAN 2.0 interfaces, 11 GPIO and +5V and +3.3V power inputs.
Direct, unbuffered access to the MCF51EM’s 16-bit ADC is provided via a dedicated pin on the EM Mini-Blox: this optimises signal processing performance in the development environment by reducing the distance signals have to travel and minimising their exposure to EMI. The MCF51EM’s ADC offers unusually high performance for an on-chip peripheral, and Future Electronics expects it to replace discrete ADCs in a wide range of applications.
Colin Weaving, Technical Director of Future Electronics (EMEA), said: ‘The development of highly integrated SoCs by semiconductor manufacturers such as Freescale Semiconductor is reducing the cost of the next generation of smart meters and enabling this exciting new market to flourish.
‘Design engineers developing a smart meter, or any other device requiring an integrated 16-bit ADC, will get a huge head-start in their development process by using the EM Mini-Blox to model the system environment in which the MCF51EM is likely to be working. The Future-Blox system of plug-in modules means the designer can access the communications peripherals, such as ZigBee, that are so vital in today’s smart meters, and design them in quickly and easily. The open BLOX interconnect standard allows users to easily map their own circuit designs on to our known working platform.’
ColdFire V1 MCF51EM smart metering MCU family highlights:
The ColdFire V1 MCF51EM MCU family provides a turnkey electrical metering solution with customized silicon for the electrical metering market. Benefits include:
32-bit ColdFire V1 core
• Additional processing power within the 32-bit ColdFire V1 core, combined with a hardware multiply accumulate (MAC) module, makes energy measurement calculations much more efficient when compared to 8-bit solutions
Real-time clock (RTC)
• Provides a real-time calendar to allow utilities to implement different tariffs, as well as tamper detection mechanisms to detect fraud
Firmware update
• Two separate blocks of flash memory on the MCF51EM allow a meter to continue operation on one flash bank while the other is being updated with new firmware, avoiding costly downtime
Automated meter reading SPI
• Provides a five-volt interface to external AMR modems, eliminating the need for external components and reducing system cost
LCD controller
• The onboard LCD controller allows the MCF51EM to control up to 288 segments with fewer pins than competitive offerings, saving system cost to the end designer
• The low-power blinking mode enables lower system power consumption by allowing certain segments to be blinked on the display with the MCU still in the lowest power mode
CROSSBOW FEATURES:
• CrossBow Future-Blox with 120-pin Future-Blox connector interface
• RS232, RS485 and CAN ports
• USB 2.0 port (for programming, debug and power supply)
• Auxiliary power supply input (+16V to +24V DC)
• Current monitor circuit to measure microcontroller current
directly (on oscilloscope or multimeter)
• Ports for ZigBee™, Bluetooth™ and WiLAN modules
• 50-pin port for custom LCD interface
• 16-pin port for alphanumeric LCD
Future-Blox boards are available free to members of Future Electronics’ Board Club. Design engineers can apply to receive a Future-Blox development platform and join the Board Club by registering for membership here.