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SAM L21 Training with Hands-on Labs

Last modified by Microchip on 2023/11/09 09:01
Contents

Description

This class is intended to be taught by an instructor. As such, some of the slides may not be easily understood without the instructor making sense of them. That said, you should still be able to learn a lot from it.

This training can be downloaded and used off-line. It consists of slides (PDF) and a lab manual that will describe the SAM L family of microcontrollers and teach you how to use them. The information contained in this presentation will eventually be available in Developer Help pages, but we wanted to provide you with this download now so you don't have to wait.

Class Abstract

The SAM L family of microcontrollers is specifically designed for ultra-low power applications (e.g. battery-operated IoT devices). Power consumption can be reduced down to 35 µA/MHz in Active mode and 200 nA in Sleep mode. To take advantage of all the power-saving features this family offers, you must first understand what they are and how to use them. That is the goal of this class.

After providing an overview of the SAM L system architecture, the class will teach you the different power supply and on-chip voltage regulator options that are available. You will also learn how the highly configurable clock generator provides clocks to different parts of the chip. You will learn how the multiple power domains and clock gating can be used to place the device into one of five different power modes (from Active to Off). You will also learn how some intelligent peripherals can wake up from sleep and perform some task without waking up the CPU (Sleepwalking mode).

The last section of this class shows the capabilities of the new and enhanced peripherals (including low-power SRAM and analog) found on the SAM L devices. You will also learn how the SAM L21 Xplained Pro Evaluation Kit can be used with the Studio IDE Data Visualizer for power profiling.

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Hands-on Labs

Two hands-on labs help you to apply your newly acquired knowledge:

  • Lab1:
    • Use the Atmel START Web UI to generate a Studio IDE project and source code based on the Atmel Software Framework (ASF)
      • Create an Atmel START project
      • Add the USART driver for debug messages
      • Add the Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC)O and I²C driver for temperature and light sensor
      • Add the Serial Programming Interface (SPI) driver to display temp and light sensor data using Atmel Data Visualizer
  • Lab2:
    • Place the SAM L21 into its five power modes and use Studio IDE's Data Visualizer to measure the power consumption.
      • Create an Atmel START project
      • Configure the oscillators and clocks
      • Configure the External Interrupt Controller
      • Configure the SW0 push button using Atmel START PINMUX Configurator
      • Place the SAM L21 into its five power modes and measure the power consumption using Atmel Data Visualizer

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Reference Materials

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Development Hardware Required for Labs

SAM L21 Xplained Pro Evaluation Kit

The SAM L21 Xplained Pro Evaluation Kit is a hardware platform to evaluate the ATSAML21J18B microcontroller.

Supported by the Microchip Studio integrated development platform (formerly Atmel Studio), the kit provides easy access to the features of the Atmel ATSAML21J18B and explains how to integrate the device in a custom design.

The Xplained Pro MCU series evaluation kits include an on-board Embedded Debugger so that no external tools are necessary to program or debug the ATSAML21J18B.

sam l21 xplained pro evaluation kit

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Atmel IO1 Xplained Pro Extension Board

Atmel IO1 Xplained Pro Extension Board is an extension board to the Atmel Xplained Pro evaluation platform.

I/O1 Xplained Pro is designed to give a wide variety of functionality to Xplained Pro MCU boards including a microSD card, a temperature sensor, a light sensor, and more.

io1 xplained pro extension

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