Silicon Laboratories Thunderboard Sense UG250 User Manual
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Silicon Laboratories Thunderboard Sense UG250 User Manual

Silicon Laboratories Thunderboard Sense UG250 User Manual

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UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide
The Thunderboard™ Sense is the ultimate multi-sensor, multi-
protocol cloud inspiration kit.
The board is a small and cost effective, feature rich, prototype and development plat-
form based on the EFR32™ Mighty Gecko Wireless System-on-Chip. The Thunder-
board Sense is an ideal platform for developing energy-friendly connected IoT devices.
This is a true multi-protocol capable kit, supporting proprietary stacks and standard pro-
tocols such as Zigbee, Thread and Bluetooth® low energy.
The Thunderboard Sense ships with a ready to use Bluetooth demo that works with a
cloud connected smartphone app, showcasing easy collection of environmental and
motion sensor data.
A built in SEGGER J-Link debugger ensures easy customization and development.
silabs.com | Building a more connected world.
KEY POINTS
• EFR32 Mighty Gecko Wireless SoC
• Fine grained power-control for ultra low
power operation
• 2.4 GHz ceramic chip antenna
• Six sensors and four high brightness
controllable RGB LEDs
• User LEDs/pushbuttons
• 8-Mbit Flash for OTA programming
• SEGGER J-Link on-board debugger
• Virtual COM Port
• Mini Simplicity connector for AEM and
packet trace using external Silicon Labs
debugger
• 20-pin 2.54 mm breakout pads
• Power sources include USB, coin cell and
external batteries
ON-BOARD SENSORS
• Relative humidity and temperature sensor
• UV index and ambient light sensor
• Indoor air quality gas sensor
• 6-axis inertial sensor
• Barometric pressure sensor
• MEMS microphone
SOFTWARE SUPPORT
• Simplicity Studio™
• Energy Profiler
• Network Analyzer
Rev. 1.1

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Summary of Contents for Silicon Laboratories Thunderboard Sense UG250

  • Page 1 UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide The Thunderboard™ Sense is the ultimate multi-sensor, multi- KEY POINTS protocol cloud inspiration kit. • EFR32 Mighty Gecko Wireless SoC The board is a small and cost effective, feature rich, prototype and development plat- • Fine grained power-control for ultra low form based on the EFR32™...

  • Page 2: Table Of Contents

    Table of Contents 1. Introduction ....... . 4 1.1 Kit Contents .
  • Page 3 5.3 Interrupt Controller ......28 5.3.1 Clearing Interrupts ......28 5.3.2 Periodic Event Signalling .

  • Page 4: Introduction

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Introduction 1. Introduction The Thunderboard Sense (OPN: SLTB001A) has been designed to inspire customers to make battery operated IoT devices with the Silicon Labs EFR32 Mighty Gecko Wireless System-on-Chip. The highlights of the board include six different environmental sensors and four high brightness RGB LEDs accessible to the EFR32 wireless MCU.

  • Page 5: Kit Contents

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Introduction 1.1 Kit Contents The following items are included in the box: • 1x Thunderboard Sense board (BRD4160A) 1.2 Hardware Content The following key hardware elements are included on the Thunderboard Sense: • EFR32 Mighty Gecko Wireless SoC with a 2.4 GHz ceramic antenna for wireless transmission •...

  • Page 6: Specifications

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Specifications 2. Specifications 2.1 Absolute Maximum Ratings Parameter Symbol Unit USB Input Voltage +5.5 USB-MAX Supply Voltage VMCU +3.8 VDDMAX LDO output current VREG-LOAD Voltage on any I/O pin -0.3 VMCU+0.3 DIGPIN Current per I/O pin (sink) IOMAX Current per I/O pin (source) IOMAX...

  • Page 7: Current Consumption

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Specifications 2.3 Current Consumption The operating current of the board greatly depends on the application. The number of enabled sensors, how often they are sampled and how often the radio is transmitting or receiving are examples of factors that influence the operating current. The table below at- tempts to give some indication of how different features of the board contribute to the overall power consumption.
  • Page 8 UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Specifications Parameter Symbol Condition Unit IMU Current Consumption Turned off and isolated (leakage) Full-chip sleep mode µA Gyroscope Only, 102.3 Hz update rate 1.23 Accelerometer only, 102.3 Hz update rate 68.9 µA Gyroscope + Accelerometer, 102.3 Hz 1.27 update rate RGB LED Current Consumption...

  • Page 9: Hardware

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Hardware 3. Hardware The core of the Thunderboard Sense is the EFR32 Mighty Gecko Wireless System-on-Chip. The board also contains a multitude of sensors, including various environmental sensors and a motion sensor, all connected to the EFR32. The user interface components include push buttons, a bi-colour LED and four high brightness RGB LEDs.

  • Page 10: Power Supply

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Hardware 3.2 Power Supply There are several ways to power the kit. The options include battery, on-board LDO from USB and the Mini Simplicity connector. Figure 3.2 Thunderboard Sense Power Options on page 10 shows the power options available on the kit and illustrates the main system power architecture.

  • Page 11: Efr32 Reset

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Hardware 3.3 EFR32 Reset The EFR32 Wireless SoC can be reset by a few different sources: • A user pressing the RESET button. • The on-board debugger pulling the #RESET pin low. • An external debugger pulling the #RESET pin low. In addition to the reset sources mentioned above, the debugger will also issue a reset to the EFR32 when starting up.

  • Page 12: Si7021 Relative Humidity And Temperature Sensor

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Hardware 3.5.1 Si7021 Relative Humidity and Temperature Sensor The Si7021 I C relative humidity and temperature sensor is a monolithic CMOS IC integrating humidity and temperature sensor ele- ments, an analog-to-digital converter, signal processing, calibration data, and an I C Interface.

  • Page 13: Si1133 Uv Index And Ambient Light Sensor

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Hardware 3.5.2 Si1133 UV Index and Ambient Light Sensor The Si1133 is a UV index and ambient light sensor with I C digital interface and programmable event interrupt output. This sensor IC includes dual 23-bit analog-to-digital converters, integrated high-sensitivity array of UV, visible and infrared photodiodes, and digital sig- nal processor.

  • Page 14: Bmp280 Barometric Pressure Sensor

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Hardware 3.5.3 BMP280 Barometric Pressure Sensor The BMP280 is a combined absolute barometric pressure sensor and temperature sensor with a digital interface supporting both SPI and I C. No external sensing elements are needed, and the device has an integrated ADC and ASIC with built-in configurable IIR filter to suppress noise.

  • Page 15: Ccs811 Indoor Air Quality Gas Sensor

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Hardware 3.5.4 CCS811 Indoor Air Quality Gas Sensor The CCS811 is a digital gas sensor solution for indoor air quality monitoring over the I C interface. Gases that can be detected by the CCS811 includes ethanol and hazardous gases such as carbon monoxide and a wide range of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). On the Thunderboard Sense, the CCS811 is powered down and isolated by default.

  • Page 16: Icm-20648 6-Axis Inertial Sensor

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Hardware 3.5.5 ICM-20648 6-Axis Inertial Sensor The ICM-20648 is a 6-axis inertial sensor consisting of a 3-axis gyroscope and a 3-axis accelerometer. Acceleration is detected inde- pendently along the X-, Y-, and Z- axes with 16-bit ADCs, in addition to the angular rates around the same axes. An integrated process- or computes motion processing algorithms for ease of use and improved system power performance.

  • Page 17: Spv1840 Mems Microphone

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Hardware 3.5.6 SPV1840 MEMS Microphone The SPV1840 is an omnidirectional MEMS microphone with high performance and low power consumption in a miniature 3.75 x 1.85 x 0.90 mm surface mount package. Included on the SPV1840 is an acoustic sensor, a low noise input buffer and an output amplifier. The microphone is suitable in applications requiring excellent audio performance and RF immunity.

  • Page 18: Leds

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Hardware 3.6 LEDs The board contains one low power bi-color LED (red/green), and four high brightness RGB LEDs. The low power LED and the RGB LEDs share the same I/O pins, but the RGB LEDs can be individually enabled/disabled through the Power and Interrupt Controller. Figure 3.11 LEDs on page 18 shows how the different LEDs are connected to the EFR32, and how power to the RGB LEDs is control- led.

  • Page 19: Low Power Red/Green Led

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Hardware 3.6.2 Low power red/green LED The board contains a small bi-color LED that is directly connected to PD11 and PD12 through current limiting resistors. Since these are directly connected, they cannot be disabled, and will always light up when these lines are driven high. The current consumption of this LED is fairly low compared to the RGB LEDs, so the use of this LED is suitable for coin cell applica- tions.

  • Page 20: On-Board Debugger

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Hardware 3.9 On-board Debugger The Thunderboard Sense contains a microcontroller separate from the EFR32 Mighty Gecko that provides the user with a on-board J- Link debugger through the USB micro-B port. This microcontroller is referred to as the "On-board Debugger", and is not programmable by the user.

  • Page 21: Breakout Pads

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Hardware 3.10.1 Breakout Pads 20 breakout pads, which follow the expansion header pinout, are provided and allow connection of peripherals or add-on boards. Ten of the pads are located along the left side of the board while the remaining ten are located on the right side of the board. The breakout pads contain a number of I/O pins that can be used with most of the EFR32 Mighty Gecko's features.

  • Page 22: Mini Simplicity Connector

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Hardware 3.10.2 Mini Simplicity Connector The Mini Simplicity connector featured on the Thunderboard Sense allows the use of an external debugger such as a Silicon Labs Wireless Starter Kit (WSTK) with the board. In addition to providing serial wire debug (SWD) and virtual COM port functionality, the WSTK can also support advanced energy profiling and wireless network analysis and debugging tools.

  • Page 23: Debugging

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Debugging 4. Debugging The Thunderboard Sense contains an on-board fully functional SEGGER J-Link Debugger that interfaces to the target EFR32 using the Serial Wire Debug (SWD) interface. The debugger allows the user to download code and debug applications running in the target EFR32.

  • Page 24: Virtual Com Port

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Debugging 4.2 Virtual COM Port The virtual COM port is a connection to a USART of the target EFR32, and allows serial data to be sent and received from the device. The on-board debugger presents this as a virtual COM port on the host computer that shows up when the USB cable is inserted. Alter- natively, the VCOM port can also be used through the Mini Simplicity Connector with an external WSTK.

  • Page 25: Power And Interrupt Controller

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Power and Interrupt Controller 5. Power and Interrupt Controller This chapter contains reference information about how to interface with the Power and Interrupt Controller implemented in the EFM8 Sleepy Bee on the Thunderboard Sense. The software examples available for the Thunderboard Sense provide a board support package (BSP) that handles enabling and inter- facing to the different peripherals on the board.

  • Page 26: Register Map

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Power and Interrupt Controller 5.2 Register Map The register map of the power and interrupt controller is outlined below. Power to sensors are enabled by writing a single bit to the control register for each sensor or sensor group. The CCS811 indoor air quality sensor has an additional "wake" bit that controls the sensor's WAKE line.
  • Page 27 UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Power and Interrupt Controller Addr Name Type Description Reset 0x08 INT_CTRL Interrupt controller settings register 0x00 • Bits 7:6 - Reserved • Bit 5 - Latched interrupt pin mode. If this bit is set the device will keep the int/wake signal low as long as an enabled interrupt flag is set.

  • Page 28: Interrupt Controller

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Power and Interrupt Controller 5.3 Interrupt Controller A simple interrupt controller has been implemented in the EFM8 Sleepy Bee firmware to collect interrupt signals from several sources and notify the host if something happens. The three different interrupt sources available are •...

  • Page 29: Periodic Event Signalling

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Power and Interrupt Controller 5.3.2 Periodic Event Signalling In some systems it could be possible that the interrupt pulse from the interrupt controller is missed, which can be critical to the applica- tion in some cases. As a possible work-around, there is a possibility to let the interrupt controller continuously signal pulses as long as an interrupt that is enabled has its flag set.

  • Page 30: Radio

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Radio 6. Radio 6.1 RF Section This section gives a short introduction to the RF section of the BRD4160A board. The schematic of the RF section is shown in the figue below. 2.4 GHz High Chip Antenna and Matching Frequency...

  • Page 31: Antenna

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Radio 6.1.4 Antenna The BRD4160A has an on-board ceramic antenna. The land pattern for the antenna on the PCB layout was designed based on the recommendations of the antenna datasheet. Due to the fact that there is significant difference between the layout (practically the board size) of the BRD4160A and the antenna evaluation board the applied antenna matching network deviates from the recommendation.

  • Page 32: Emc Regulations For 2.4 Ghz

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Radio 6.2 EMC Regulations for 2.4 GHz 6.2.1 ETSI EN 300-328 Emission Limits for the 2400-2483.5 MHz Band Based on ETSI EN 300-328 the allowed maximum fundamental power for the 2400-2483.5 MHz band is 20 dBm EIRP. For the unwan- ted emissions in the 1 GHz to 12.75 GHz domain the specified limit is -30 dBm EIRP.

  • Page 33: Radiated Power Measurements

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Radio 6.3 Radiated Power Measurements The output power of the EFR32 was set to 10 dBm. The board was supplied through its USB connector by connecting to a PC through a USB cable. During the measurements the board was rotated in three cuts, see the reference plane illustration in the figure below. The radiated powers of the fundamental and the harmonics were measured with horizontal and vertical reference antenna polarizations.

  • Page 34: Antenna Pattern Measurement

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Radio 6.3.2 Antenna Pattern Measurement The measured typical antenna patterns are shown in the figures below. Figure 6.4. Antenna Pattern - XY silabs.com | Building a more connected world. Rev. 1.1 | 34...
  • Page 35 UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Radio Figure 6.5. Antenna Pattern - XZ Figure 6.6. Antenna Pattern - YZ silabs.com | Building a more connected world. Rev. 1.1 | 35...

  • Page 36: Emc Compliance Recommendations

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Radio 6.4 EMC Compliance Recommendations 6.4.1 Recommendations for 2.4 GHz ETSI EN 300-328 Compliance As it was shown in the previous chapter with the EFR32 output power set to 10 dBm the radiated power of the fundamental of the BRD4160A complies with the 20 dBm limit of the ETSI EN 300-328.

  • Page 37: Schematics, Assembly Drawings And Bom

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Schematics, Assembly Drawings and BOM 7. Schematics, Assembly Drawings and BOM The schematics, assembly drawings and bill of materials (BOM) for the hardware included on the Thunderboard Sense are available through Simplicity Studio when the kit documentation package has been installed. silabs.com | Building a more connected world.

  • Page 38: Kit Revision History And Errata

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Kit Revision History and Errata 8. Kit Revision History and Errata 8.1 Revision History The kit revision can be found printed on the box label of the kit, as outlined in the figure below. The kit revision history is summarised in Table 8.1 Kit Revision History on page 38 Thunderboard Sense SLTB001A...

  • Page 39: Board Revision History And Errata

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Board Revision History and Errata 9. Board Revision History and Errata 9.1 Revision History The board revision can be found laser printed on the board, and the board revision history is summarised in Table 9.1. Board Revision History Revision Label Outline Released...

  • Page 40: Document Revision History

    UG250: Thunderboard Sense User's Guide Document Revision History 10. Document Revision History Revision 1.1 2017-10-10 • Removed CR2032 battery from Section 1.1 Kit Contents • Updated section 8.1 and section 9.1. Revision 1.01 2016-09-26 • Minor edit. • Corrected release dates in table 8.1. Revision 1.00 2016-09-20 •...
  • Page 41 Trademark Information Silicon Laboratories Inc.® , Silicon Laboratories®, Silicon Labs®, SiLabs® and the Silicon Labs logo®, Bluegiga®, Bluegiga Logo®, Clockbuilder®, CMEMS®, DSPLL®, EFM®, EFM32®, EFR, Ember®, Energy Micro, Energy Micro logo and combinations thereof, "the world’s most energy friendly microcontrollers", Ember®, EZLink®, EZRadio®, EZRadioPRO®, Gecko®, ISOmodem®, Micrium, Precision32®, ProSLIC®, Simplicity Studio®, SiPHY®, Telegesis, the Telegesis Logo®, USBXpress®, Zentri and others are trademarks or registered...

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