Low Power Application on SAM E54 Using MPLAB® Harmony v3 Peripheral Libraries: Step 7

Last modified by Microchip on 2023/11/09 09:08

Build and Program the Application

Clean and build your application by clicking on the Clean and Build button as shown.

Clean and Build button

In case of compilation errors, recheck the steps and build the project again.

Program your application to the device by clicking on the Make and Program button as shown.

Make and Program button

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Open the Tera Term application (or another terminal console) on your PC and navigate to File > New connection.

tera term new connection

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Navigate to the Serial box in the opened window and select the port number that corresponds to the Embedded Debugger (EDGB) Virtual COM Port of your connected SAM E54 Xplained Pro. Then, press OK to open a serial connection.

tera term new connection window

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Open the Serial port configuration of Tera Term by navigating to Setup > Serial port.

tera term serial port

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In the Serial Port window, verify that the Baud Rate is set to 115200 and other elements are set as shown in the image, then press OK.

tera term serial port setup

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Now that the serial console is configured, reset the board, and verify the application title message is displayed.

console message after reset

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Cover the light sensor on the I/O Xplained Pro board by placing your hand over it (or another element to put the light sensor in a dark environment) to print the temperature and message on the terminal. You should see the following messages (containing the temperature value in °F) on the terminal every 500 milliseconds for the duration the light sensor is covered:

console message after covering lightsensor

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Observe Current Consumption on Data Visualizer

Data Visualizer is a program to process and visualize data. The Data Visualizer can receive data from various sources such as the Embedded Debugger Data Gateway Interface (EDBG DGI) and COM ports. It is possible to track an application in run-time using a terminal graph or oscilloscope. It analyzes the power consumption of an application through the correlation of code execution and power consumption when used together with a supported probe or board.

To download and install the stand-alone Data Visualizer, click here.

Open the Data Visualizer application from your PC and select the connected SAM E54 Xplained Pro board on the DGI Control Panel, then click on Connect. The Data Visualizer will then start searching for protocols from the SAM E54 Xplained Pro board through the EDBG.

data visualizer dgi control panel selection

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Once the Data Visualizer is connected to the SAM E54 EDBG, different interfaces will appear. Select the Power interface and click on the Start button to start measuring the power consumption of the device.

data visualizer power start buttons

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Ensure that the jumpers for Current Measurement on the SAM E54 Xplained Pro are set to MEASURE for the MCU and BYPASS for the I/Os.

current measurement hardware setup

The Power Analysis window will appear on the Data Visualizer tool interface.

data visualizer power analysis window

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The accompanying image shows the device in Standby mode with its measured power consumption. You can observe small peaks that illustrate the 500 milliseconds Real-Time Clock (RTC) timer expiry.

device in standby mode

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The average value is considered when measuring the power consumption of the device because the instant value is not stable. Then, the power consumption of the device in Standby mode is 130.5 µA.

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Cover the light sensor on the I/O Xplained Pro board by placing your hand over it (or another element) to print the temperature on the terminal and observe the power consumption of the device.

device wakes up and print temperature

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The power consumption of the device in Active mode is 5.6 mA and the power consumption of the same device in Standby mode is 131.4 µA. This shows the device in Standby mode will consume less power.

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Press the SW0 button to switch from Standby mode to Idle mode. The following image shows the transition of the power consumption from Standby mode to Idle mode.

standby idle transition

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The following image shows the device in Idle mode with a measured power consumption of 1599.4 µA.

device in idle mode

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You can observe that the small peaks coming from RTC timer expiry disappeared because the power consumption in Idle mode is higher than the power required to start Analog-to-Digital (ADC) conversion.

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Place your hand over the light sensor. The device will wake up on the next ADC window monitor interrupt, read and print data on serial, and then re-enter Standby mode. The following image shows the transition of the power consumption by switching from Idle mode to Standby mode.

transition from idle to standby

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Note that the above results highlight the power consumption is lower in Standby mode than in Idle mode.

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Results

You successfully created a low power application using the SAM E54 Xplained Pro Evaluation Kit and I/O1 Xplained Pro Kit and experienced how, where, and which Low Power mode to use depending on the application requirements such as power and wake up response times.

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Analysis

In this lab, you have successfully created a project from scratch, added Peripheral Libraries (PLIBs), and learned how to use an Event System to drive events received from the peripherals without CPU intervention. You also learned how to configure a device to work in Sleep modes and measure wake-up time.

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Conclusions

In this tutorial, you discovered how to configure the device to work in Sleep modes, this tutorial can be used as a reference when you develop a real-time application where the power and wake up response time plays a crucial role.

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