Arduino: Arduino Fio Reference Design based on Atmel ATmega328P Microcontroller

Kit Overview

The Arduino Fio is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega328PATmega328P runs at 3.3V and 8 MHz. It has 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 8 analog inputs, an on-board resonator, a reset button, and holes for mounting pin headers. It has connections for a Lithium Polymer battery and includes a charge circuit over USB. An XBee socket is available on the bottom of the board.

The Arduino Fio is intended for wireless applications. The user can upload sketches with an a FTDI cable or Sparkfun breakout board. Additionally, by using a modified USB-to-XBee adaptor such as XBee Explorer USB, the user can upload sketches wirelessly. The board comes without pre-mounted headers, allowing the use of various types of connectors or direct soldering of wires.

The ATmega328PATmega328P is a low-power CMOS 8-bit microcontroller based on the AVR enhanced RISC architecture. By executing powerful instructions in a single clock cycle, theATmega328PATmega328P achieves throughputs approaching 1 MIPS per MHz allowing the system designer to optimize power consumption versus processing speed. The AVR core combines a rich instruction set with 32 general purpose working registers. All the 32 registers are directly connected to the Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU), allowing two independent registers to be accessed in one single instruction executed in one clock cycle. The resulting architecture is more code efficient while achieving throughputs up to ten times faster than con- ventional CISC microcontrollers.

Key Applications: Wireless communication.