Mikroe cuts development time with Clicker 4 and Codegrip
MikroElektronika (Mikroe) has introduced the Clicker 4 Mikroe starter board with the advanced Codegrip programmer/debugger on board. This is the first in a series, said the company.
Clicker boards support development using Mikroe’s Click board add-on development boards. Mikroe said it currently offers more add-on Click boards than any other company today and calculates that there are 188, 544, 549, 285 unique combinations that can be made from the 1,460 boards available.
Clicker 4 is equipped with the popular STM32F4 microcontroller and is designed to accelerate the prototyping process, although it can also be implemented directly into a fully functional, custom design. Key features include a 32-bit Arm Cortex-M4 STM32F4 microcontroller operating at up to 168MHz, 1Mbyte flash memory, floating point unit, a full set of DSP instructions and a memory protection unit.
Mikroe designed the Clicker 4 to make the prototyping experience as convenient as possible, equipping it with an on-board Codegrip programmed/debugger, which is compliant with the on-board emulator standard, CMSIS-DAP. This allows designers to fully use, test, and debug the target device right out of the box, said the company.
A JTAG/SWD header for interfacing with external electronics, USB Type-C connectors, six LEDs, six push buttons, and a reset button are also included. There are five power supply inputs, offering flexibility in development. There is also a reliable and safe battery charging circuit, which allows a single-cell Li-Po/Li-Ion battery to be charged.
Click boards follow mikroBUS a modular prototyping add-on board standard invented by Mikroe, enabling design engineers to change peripherals easily, cutting months off development time. Any Click board can be connected to the microcontroller or microprocessor on a main board. Many leading microcontroller companies including Microchip, NXP, Infineon, Dialog, STM, Analog Devices, Renesas and Toshiba now include the mikroBUS socket on their development boards.
MikroElektronika (Mikroe) invented the mikroBUS development socket standard in 2011 together with the compact Click boards and SiBRAIN, its standard for microcontroller development add-on boards and sockets and the company’s DISCON standard enables uses to choose between a wide variety of supported LCDs and touchscreen options. Mikroe also offers the NECTO IDE, a range of compilers, plus development boards, programmers and debuggers. Mikroe’s Planet Debug is believed to be the embedded industry’s first hardware-as-a-service – whichenables designers to develop and debug embedded systems remotely over the internet without investing in hardware.
