Click board reduces weight and power for final phase prototyping

MIKROE has announced a new feature to be rolled across its range of Click boards, which reduces size, weight and power consumption for second-level prototyping and production. With Click Snap, users can develop their systems in the usual way, utilising the add-on peripheral boards and development boards equipped with the mikroBUS socket. When the concept has been proven and code developed, the part of the board with the specific active peripheral circuitry – anything from sensors and communication modules to advanced audio processing and motor control – can be snapped free of the rest of the Click board and used as a SoM.

Comments Nebojsa Matic, CEO of MIKROE: “Click boards are ideal for fast, low-cost embedded systems development, saving many hours of duplicated, wasted effort and eliminating costly development tools. However, when users need to take the next step, from initial proof-of-concept prototyping to fully functional design, space, weight, and power consumption may become an issue. By breaking out the ‘Snap’ section of our new Click Snap boards, designers can have instantaneous access to parts proven in their design but are only marginally larger than the active chip on its own. Weight and power consumption will also be greatly reduced. They can use this for final prototyping or low-volume production.”

The first part to be made available with the new Snap feature is Inclinometer 4 Click, which is designed to measure angles of slope or elevation of an object. This board features the FXLS8971CF, a three-axis low-g MEMS accelerometer from NXP Semiconductor with selectable full-scale ranges of ±2/4/8/16g and features such as selectable output data rates, motion detection, and a 144-byte output data buffer. It is ideal for industrial and medical IoT applications, including asset tracking, equipment monitoring, smart metering, and orientation detection.

A further advantage of the Snap feature for Click boards is that the active part of the add-on board can be situated remotely from the development board, connected to the microbus carrier board via a flexible cable. This could potentially be very useful for sensing systems development, for example.