PIC32MZ added to interchangeable MCU development boards

Author: EIS Release Date: Jun 24, 2021

MikroElektronika, has introduced a SiBrain interchangeable board MCU board for Microchip’s PIC32MZ1024EFF144 microcontroller, giving access to its 144 pins, 1Mbyte flash memory and 262kbyte of ram.

 

MikroE sibrain-for-PIC32mz1024eff144

The core in the processor is a 32bit 200MHz (330DMIPS) Warrior M-class from MIPS.

 

The Serbian company is the one behind ‘Click board’ interchangeable peripheral boards which have a standard footprint and standard electrical interfaces.

 

MikroE SiBrain-interchangeAlong similar lines to Click boards, SiBrain is the latest generation of its interchangeable MCU boards which share physical dimensions and electrical interfaces, allowing different MCUs to be swapped on and off of any carrier board equipped with the footprint – which has two high-speed 168pin mezzanine connectors, one male and one female, with a standard pin-out on a 61 x 61mm PCB.

 

‘SiBrain’ is actually a new name for what was the 8th generation of MikroE’s ‘MCU Card’ range.

 

So far there are over 100 SiBrain cards, covering MCUs from Microchip, STMicroelectronics, NXP and Texas Instruments – with more planned, including from other chip companies.

 

“Depending on the MCU type, its pin count, and the number of required external components, there are different SiBrain add-on boards,” according to the company. “Each board is a self-contained unit, allowing the development system to operate on a logic level, without having to facilitate the specific requirements of many different MCUs. This gives designers a free hand in the choice of MCU, regardless of the pin count or pin compatibility. Most importantly, this approach enables designers to swap SiBRAIN MCU cards easily during the development phase, without any additional hardware.”

 

Isn’t having the same pinout for different MCUs limiting in some way?

 

Not really, according to MikroE CEO Nebojsa Matic, who told Electronics Weekly:

 

We are just connecting pins from microcontroller on to appropriate pins on connector, so pins from Port A from microcontroller go to PortA pins on connector, Ethernet pins go to Ethernet pins on connector, and so on. Actually, the SiBrain socket has all pins which we could find on any microcontroller plus all peripherals  – like ethernet pins, pins for programming the MCU, voltage level pins and mikroBUS connectors. Every pin from the microcontroller goes to SiBrain connectors, and the cards have two connectors of 168 pins each, so we are safe for all microcontrollers up to 300-320 pins.

 

MikroE’s pin-out groups the pins under nine headings:

 

Port pins. that are routed to a specified port

Display Board pins are routed to the display board connector.

mikroBUS pins: pins that are routed to the five individual mikroBUS sockets on the company’s carrier board

USB-UART pins: Tx and Rx for a USB-UART module on a host board

USB device/host pins

Ethernet pins

CAN pins

Analogue pins to the ADC inputs of the MCU

‘Additional’ GPIO pins: those not shared on any of the mikroBUS sockets