Enabling hundreds of click boards to be hot-plugged into the Linux development environment

MikroElektronika (MIKROE) has introduced ClickID, a hardware/software (HW/SW) open-source solution based on a one-wire device that allows hot-plugging of Click or any other mikroBUS-compatible add-on peripheral boards to development boards operating embedded Linux or similar OS.

The solution brings a new level of automation and self-diagnosis to embedded tools. Integrating with Click boards on an embedded system facilitates more complex operations, permitting software to identify add-on board peripheral configurations.

A ClickID demo library is available for use on any MIKROE development system. This versatile example illustrates how to read, write, and process data from the solution. The full application code and ready-to-use projects can be easily installed from NECTO Studio Package Manager, downloaded from LibStock, or found on the company's GitHub account.

Comments Nebojsa Matic, CEO of MIKROE: "Click boards have always featured the standardised mikroBUS sockets, which represented a big step forward in the embedded industry as it enabled embedded boards to be more modular and easily upgradable by quickly adding and changing hardware in the form of mikroBUS-compatible add-on boards such as Clicks. Now, by adding HW/SW support that is automatically recognised by popular OS, such as Linux, we have eliminated the challenge of configuring a huge range of devices at boot-time with device trees, which is time-consuming and error-prone."

For Linux-based systems like BeaglePlay, the solution simplifies the addition and operation of peripheral add-on boards. It communicates with the operating system kernel using the 1-Wire protocol, allowing automatic recognition of silicon ICs on add-on boards. It supplies manifest files to the operating system, enabling the loading of appropriate drivers for interfaces such as SPI, I2C, UART, PWM, and ADC.

Comments Christine Long, CEO of BeagleBoard.org Foundation: "At BeagleBoard.org, we are obsessed with improving developer experiences, especially for new users. We are thrilled to see MIKROE introduce ClickID and to adopt mikroBUS manifests we've introduced for future versions of Linux. This is a big step enabling users of boards like our BeagleBoard.org BeaglePlay to simply use the well-tested code that is already there without needing to search and integrate, just connect and play!"