Atmel SAM E70 Xplained Evaluation kit

Atmel SAME70-XPLD is an evaluation platform providing a full development experience for Atmel’s SAM E70 microcontrollers. The MCU features an ARM Cortex-M7 architecture and integrated floating-point unit, making it well-suited for industrial applications including motor control and lighting, as well as consumer and PC peripheral applications. The XPLD ecosystem consists of the microcontroller evaluation board, and a wide range of extension boards which are integrated with Atmel Studio, Atmel Software Framework (ASF) drivers and demo code, support data streaming, and more. Additionally, the SAME70-XPLD evaluation board supports Arduino shields for further expansion.

Each extension board has standardized connectors and headers, and includes an Atmel CryptoAuthenticationTM ID chip for unique identification upon connection with an Xplained MCU board. This information is used to present associated user guides, application notes, data sheets, and example code through Atmel Studio, thereby simplifying and enhancing the development experience.

All Xplained kits include an on-board Embedded Debugger, and no external tools are necessary to program or debug the target microcontroller.

Microcontroller:
SAME70-XPLD Evaluation Kit features the SAM E70 microcontroller, a high-performance, general-purpose ARM Cortex-M7 microcontroller with integrated Floating-Point Unit and large memory integration, capable of running at speeds up to 300 MHz. The microcontroller includes an event system enabling peripherals to receive, react to, and send events in Active and Sleep modes without processor intervention.

SAM E70 microcontrollers feature a combination of user interface functionalities and high data-rate IO, camera interface, audio interface, 10/100 Ethernet ports, high-speed USB, and SD card.

Migration and Compatibility:
The SAM E70 devices are pin-to-pin compatible with the SAM4E (100-pin and 144-pin versions), except for USB signals. The Atmel application note "Migrating the SAM4E to SAM E70 Microcontroller" (reference 44034) is available on www.atmel.com to ease migration from SAM4E devices to SAM E70 devices.

Software Development:
The SAME70-XPLD contains the Atmel Embedded Debugger (EDBG) for on-board debugging. The EDBG is a composite USB device of three interfaces:

• Debugger
• Virtual COM Port
• Data Gateway Interface (DGI)

Together with Atmel Studio, the EDBG debugger interface can program and debug the ATSAME70Q21.

On the SAME70-XPLD, the SWD interface is connected between the EDBG and the ATSAME70Q21. The Virtual COM Port is connected to a UART on the ATSAME70Q21 and provides an easy way to communicate with the target application through terminal software. It offers variable baud rate, parity, and stop bit settings.

The DGI consists of several physical, bidirectional interfaces for communication with the host computer. It can be used to send events and values from the ATSAME70Q21 or as a generic printf-style data channel. Traffic over the interfaces can be timestamped on the EDBG for more accurate tracing of events. Atmel Data Visualizer is used to send and receive data through DGI.