The feature, Click Snap, looks to reduce size, weight and power consumption for second level prototyping and production and users can develop their systems in the usual way using 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 System-on-Module (SoM).
Commenting Nebojsa Matic, CEO of MIKROE, said, “Click boards are ideal for fast, low cost embedded systems development, saving many hours of duplicated, wasted effort, and eliminating costly development tools.
“But when you 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 immediate access to parts that have been proven in their design, but which are only marginally larger than the active chip on its own. Weight and power consumption will also be significantly 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 the Inclinometer 4 Click which is designed to measure angles of slope or elevation of an object.
This board features the FXLS8971CF, a 3-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 intended for industrial and medical IoT applications, including asset tracking, equipment monitoring, smart metering, and orientation detection.
A further advantage that the Snap feature brings to 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 be potentially very useful for sensing systems development, for example.