If you’re moving a bunch of data around, the DMA controllers are going to be your best friends. However they have their quirks and undocumented features. This post will describe what I’ve learned about them, and hopefully others can contribute…
STM32F2xx Processor Learnings
I’ve been doing a lot of work recently with the new ST processor, the STM32F2xx family. It’s a Cortex-M3 part running at 120 MHz. It’s a nice part, however I’ve lost a lot of time discovering, well, let’s not call…
MT9D131 Image Sensor JPG Header
I’ve been using the Aptina MT9D131 image sensor for a new project. It’s an interesting chip. One of the great features of this chip is its ability to output JPEG images (which includes white balance, bayer interpolation, etc). That saves…
Reduce EMI by Altering Clock Duty Cycle
If you’re designing an electronics product that will ultimately be sold, you need to comply with EMI rules. FCC, CE / CISPR, whatever it might be in your market, these regulations set limits to how much EMI your product can…
TI Chronos Watch – Custom Firmware
Texas Instruments has a very cool little MSP430 development kit, in the form of a watch. It’s called the Chronos. At the recent MSP430 seminars they had a 50% off offer, so for $25 I purchased one with the intent…
DDS Based Signal Generator
This was a fun and short little project that I’ve recently updated. If you’re thinking about building a cheap signal generator that’ll work to 20 MHz or so, and would be DDS (direct digital synthesis) based, take a look at…
Atmel Xmega HD44780 LCD Support
Over on AVRfreaks there are a lot of code snippets describing how to connect an AVR to a character LCD display, such as a standard HD44780-compatible display. But not a lot talking about how to do the same using an…
USB to Serial – Fast and Easy
It seems that every little widget (processor or whatever) I work with has a serial port on it, which is extremely handy for printing status and debugging information, etc. These serial ports are of course “TTL” level, which means they’re…
Followup to Atmel Xmega ADC Problems
Time marches on and we’ve had to perform a new PCB revision for the board containing the Atmel Xmega part. So I had the opportunity to add an external voltage reference to the chip. This was one of the things…
Atmel Xmega ADC Problems & Solutions
I’ve been working with the A/D converter on the Atmel Xmega AVR processors, and it’s been quite the handful. At this point in time (Jan 2010) the parts have some very serious issues, and I’ve lost a lot of time…