This comprehensive integration of sensors and connectivity solutions provides a robust reference design for wearable technology. It ensures high performance and low power consumption suitable for various applications in motion sensing, environmental monitoring, and BLE connectivity.
The Wearable Demo reference design is powered by key components from Atmel, featuring the Atmel SMART SAM L21 MCU based on the Cortex-M0+ architecture and the Atmel SMART Bluetooth solution. Central to this platform is the ATBTLC1000, an ultra-low power Bluetooth SMART System on a Chip that integrates a Cortex-M0 MCU, Transceiver, Modem, MAC, PA, TR Switch, and Power Management Unit (PMU). This versatile chip can function either as a Bluetooth Low Energy link controller or data pump with an external host MCU, or as a standalone applications processor with embedded BLE connectivity and external memory.
The platform’s core sensors are integral to its functionality. The BHI160 sensor integrates a 6-axis IMU with the Bosch Sensortec Fuser core, offering a flexible, low-power solution for motion sensing and sensor data processing. The BME280 sensor combines digital humidity, pressure, and temperature sensing based on proven principles. This sensor boasts an extremely fast response time for applications requiring rapid context awareness and maintains high overall accuracy across a wide temperature range. Its pressure sensor is an absolute barometric pressure sensor known for its high accuracy, resolution, and significantly lower noise. The integrated temperature sensor is optimized for minimal noise and high resolution, used not only for temperature compensation of the pressure and humidity sensors but also for ambient temperature estimation. The VEML6080 is an advanced ultraviolet (UV) and ambient light sensor. All sensors in the network connect to the SAM L21 through the SERCOM I2C interface.
It features the SAML21G18B processor at its core. It is equipped with an array of sensors, including the BHI160 motion sensors (accelerometer and gyro) and the BME280 environmental sensors (pressure, humidity, and temperature). The VEML6080 light sensor measures ambient light levels. The BHI160’s integrated Fuser Core processes raw sensor data to generate virtual sensor data, supporting functions such as game rotation vector, step detector, gravity, accelerometer, and gyroscope. The platform includes the ATECC508A for cryptographic operations and LED indicators for operational status display. Connectivity is provided by the ATBTLC1000, an ultra-low power Bluetooth® SMART (BLE 4.1) System on a Chip. Power is supplied by a CR2032 coin cell, and programming is facilitated through the Atmel-ICE ARM 10-pin interface. The device is CE/FCC certified and measures 40mm x 30mm, excluding the programming header extension.
Atmel has tested this reference design. It comes with a bill of materials (BOM), schematics, and other information. The company’s website provides additional data about the reference design. To read more about this reference design, click here.
