The MAX78000FTHR is a rapid development platform to help engineers quickly implement ultra-low-power, artificial intelligence (AI) solutions using the MAX78000 Arm® Cortex®-M4F processor with an integrated Convolutional Neural Network accelerator.
The board also includes the MAX20303 PMIC for battery and power management.
The form factor is 0.9in x 2.6in dual-row header footprint that is compatible with Adafruit Feather Wing peripheral expansion boards. The board includes a variety of peripherals, such as a CMOS VGA image sensor, digital microphone, low-power stereo audio CODEC, 1MB QSPI SRAM, micro SD card connector, RGB indicator LED, and pushbutton.
The MAX78000 feather board comes in a sturdy cardboard box. The box contains the board itself, along with a USB cable, a pinout image, and header pins to be soldered to the board.
• Dual Core: Arm Cortex-M4 Processor with FPU, 100MHz, RISC-V Coprocessor, 60MHz
• 512KB Flash Memory
• 128KB SRAM
• 16KB Cache
• Convolutional Neural Network Accelerator
• 12-Bit Parallel Camera Interface
• MAX20303 Wearable PMIC with Fuel Gauge
• Charge from USB
• On-Board DAPLink Debug and Programming Interface for Arm Cortex-M4 processor with FPU
• Breadboard Compatible Headers
• Micro USB Connector
• Micro SD Card Connector
• RGB Indicator LED
• User Pushbutton
• CMOS VGA Image Sensor
• Low-Power Stereo Audio CODEC
• Digital Microphone
• SWD Debugger
• Virtual UART Console
• 10-Pin Cortex Debug Header for RISC-V Coprocessor
- The Micro USB port is used for powering the board as well as for charging, debugging and programming the feather board.
- There is an extra JTAG connector available for debugging the RISC-V core.
- The board features a JST battery connector for LiPo batteries. This makes it easier to build portable devices and projects with this board. The mate for this header is the commonly available PHR-2 receptacle
- The power management for the entire board is handled by the MAX20303 power management controller. It also contains a fuel gauge feature, which will be useful to detect the state of charge of the connected battery.
- If we come to the peripherals, the MAX78000 feather board features two RGB LEDs, five tactile buttons, and a digital microphone. A VGA camera, and Audio line in and out connectors.
- Out of the five tactile switches, one is used as a power button, one is used for the DAP link, one is for reset and the other two are for general usage.
- The SPH0645LM4H-B digital microphone is directly connected to the MAX78000 processor through the I2C interface.
- The OVM7692 VGA image sensor is also directly connected to the MAX78000 through the I2C and PCIF interface.
- The audio input and output are handled by the onboard MAX9867 stereo codec chip. This makes it easier to develop audio-related projects with very minimal software audio processing.
- On the bottom side, we have the SD card slot which is interfaced with the MAX78000 through SPI. Other than that, we have the SWD connections for the MAX32625 along with the 1MB QSPI SRAM and some other complimentary circuitry.
The MAX78000 feather board also comes with a demo program pre-programmed. The Demo program is actually a keyword-spotting demo, which can detect certain voice commands or keywords using the onboard microphone. The demo code can recognize numbers from one to ten and the other two commands ‘Go’ and ‘Stop’. Based on the number we prompt, the board will then blink the onboard RGB LED that many times. For example, if we say “Four” the LED will blink four times, if we say “Two” it will blink twice.
Analog Devices provides its own development platform for the MAX78000 feather and similar boards, called the Maxim Micros SDK. Once downloaded, install the SDK by following the onscreen instructions. Eclipse IDE is also installed as a part of this SDK.
Overall, the MAX78000 feather development board is a very good option for both beginners and advanced users. Not only it is a powerful and easy-to-use development tool, but the manufacturer Analog Devices provides a ton of example code and documentation. The development environment is easy to set up and doesn’t need any lengthy procedure like some other development environments.
Documentation:
Datasheet: Feather Board
Datasheet: Max78000 Microcontroller
More on Max78000
Relevant Parts
| DK Part # | Mfr Part # | |
|---|---|---|
| 505-MAX78000FTHR#-ND | MAX78000FTHR# | |
| 505-MAX78000EVKIT#-ND | MAX78000EVKIT# | |
| 505-MAXREFDES178#-ND | MAXREFDES178# | |
| 505-MAX78000EXG±ND | MAX78000EXG+ |