Table of contents

RoadTest: Review the ADI MAX32650FTHR Evaluation Kit and Accessories

Author: Abhijit Sahoo

Creation date: 19 Aug 2024

Evaluation Type: Evaluation Boards

Did you receive all parts the manufacturer stated would be included in the package?: True

What other parts do you consider comparable to this product?: Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840, Espressif ESP32-WROOM-32, STM32 L4 series

What were the biggest problems encountered?: 1. Scarcity of online resources for direct drag-and-drop code for beginners. 2. During testing, an issue was encountered while using the SD Card slot on the MAX32650FTHR board. The problem may stem from a damaged SD Card slot, a one-off hardware failure that unfortunately hindered further evaluation of the MAX32650FTHR board’s logging capabilities.

Detailed Review:

Introduction

MAX32650FTHR evaluation kit is the development board for the MAX32650 microcontroller. It is an ARM Cortex M4 32 bit processor with floating point support (takes care of floating point calculation). This development kit is very helpful for developing IoT, fitness bands and automotive low energy applications. With a wide variety of features available and option for battery powered, it can work quite efficiently in portable applications.

Technical Specifications

• Upto 3MB Flash/ 1 MB RAM
• 5 low power modes available: Active, sleep, deep sleep, background, backup
• Upto 1 Real time counters (Support for 32.768 kHz crystal)
• Upto 105 GPIO pins available
• Upto 2x I2C
• Upto 4x SPI
• Upto 3x UART

Product Unboxing

Products in the kit:

• Analog Devices MAX32650FTHR board
• Analog Devices FTHR-PMD-INTZ board
• Analog Devices EVAL-ADXL355-PMDZ board
• Analog Devices EVAL-ADT7420-PMDZ board
• Other Accessories: 
• 2 USB-A to Micro-B cable
• Analog Devices MAX326325PICO JTAG debugger/programmer board
• 16 pin and 12 pin header connector
• SWD cable

Key Features

1. MAX32650 Arm Cortex-M4 processor with FPU  
2. 120MHz Core Speed 
3. 3MB Internal Flash, 1MB Internal SRAM  
4. 240Mbps SDHC/eMMC/SDIO/microSD Interface 
5. Up to 105 GPIO 
6. Battery Connector and Charging Circuit 
7. Micro-SD Card Interface  
8. USB 2.0 Full-Speed Device Interface 
9. MAX11261 6-Channel, 24-Bit ADC 

Note: 

The board is compatible with  Adafruit Feather Board 

Supports Eclipse IDE, VS code (extension), Keil,  IAR IDEs

MAX32650 FTHR power up options

• USB
• External battery supply 

MAX32650 FTHR programming methods

• Writing firmware code using Eclipse IDE, VS code or Keil
• Directly drag-and-drop pre-built HEX files.

Installation

Download the Software Development Kit (SDK) from the following link:

Analog Devices SDK. For SDK installation, one can use the following link SDK installation guide. Once installed, one can use either Eclipse IDE or Visual Studio Code (VS Code) extension for firmware development. Provided below is information about installation and use of both Eclipse IDE and VS code extension. 

Eclipse IDE 

Setup the Eclipse IDE using the following link: Eclipse IDE environment Setup

While configuring, in the select project Configuration page select the following: 

Chip Type: MAX32650

Select board type: FTHR_APPS_A

Select example type: Hello_World (based on user choice)

Select adapter type: MAX32625_PICO

VS code 

For development using VS Code install the following extensions: 

1.  Cortex-Debug - Visual Studio Marketplace
2. C/C++ - Visual Studio Marketplace

Setup the VS Code using the following link: VS Code Environment Setup

While setting up VS Code Environment for firmware development. 

In the .vscode -> settings.json use the following values for MAX32650 board

    "target":"MAX32650",

    "board":"FTHR_APPS_A"

Updating the MAX32625PICO (PICO) Debug Adapter Firmware:

MAX32625 PICO board firmware update

For observing output using UART over MAX32625PICO board, configure the following settings in any serial terminal: 

Baud Rate: 115200, Parity: None, Stop bits: 1, Data bits: 8.

Code examples 

1. Hello World example code 

     Analog Devices MAX32650FTHR Evaluation Kit "Hello World" code

2. EVAL-ADXL355-PMDZ board example code 

The EVAL-ADXL355-PMDZ has following features: 

• It is a 3-Axis accelerometer with 20 bit acceleration resolution 
• Low power consumption
• It has a small form factor, low cost, low noise, and low drift
• Supports SPI interface
• Integrated temperature sensor
• Operating temperature range of −40°C to +125°C
• 14-terminal, 6 mm × 5.6 mm × 2.2 mm, LCC package

It can be used in following applications: 

• Inertial measurement units (IMUs)/altitude and heading reference systems (AHRS)
• Platform stabilisation systems
• Structural health monitoring
• Robotics

To use pre-built hex file for using the accelerometer board, refer to the following link: EVAL-ADXL355-PMDZ User Guide

(In the above link, hex file link is broken, I have uploaded the hex file here: eval-adxl355-pmdz.zip )

If the code was uploaded correctly, one might obtain result like the following: 

The output shows measures 3 axis acceleration

It also shows temperature measurement in millidegrees Celsius

3. EVAL-ADT7420-PMDZ board board example code

The EVAL-ADT7420-PMDZ has following features: 

• Low power consumption
• 16 bit resolution upto 0.0078°C
• Temperature accuracy
• ±0.20°C from −10°C to +85°C at 3.0 V
• ±0.25°C from −20°C to +105°C from 2.7 V to 3.3 V
• Temperature range: −40°C to +150°C
• I2C-compatible interface ( upto four possible I2C addresses)
• Programmable interrupts
• Critical over temperature interrupt
• Over Temperature/under temperature interrupt
• 16-lead, 4 mm × 4 mm LFCSP RoHS-compliant package

Applications

• Industrial control and test
• Food transportation and storage
• Environmental monitoring and HVAC

To use pre-built hex file for using the accelerometer board, refer to the following link: EVAL-ADT7420-PMDZ Digital Temperature PMOD User Guide

(In the above link, hex file link is broken, I have uploaded the hex file here:  adt7420-pmdz.zip)

Below is the main.C code example for doing temperature measurement, which is useful when one wants to use temperature measurement data along with other developments. 

Above code is available at: 

Analog Devices MAX32650FTHR Evaluation Kit "Temperature data" code

Alternatively, one can directly download this project and run it for getting temperature sensor data:  

Analog Devices MAX32650FTHR Evaluation Kit "Temperature data" project

If the code was uploaded correctly, one might obtain result like the following: 

{gallery}ADT7420 output

It shows the temperature of the current environment

4. Low power example code

Example code for low power mode is available at: 

Analog Devices MAX32650FTHR Evaluation Kit "Low Power" code

In the above code, to switch between different modes, one can use button (here, SW2/S2) or RTC(alarm). One should give 1 as input for enabling different power modes and 0 for disabling in the above example. 

Note: 

During testing, I made a mistake that resulted in damage to the MAX77818 IC in MAX32650FTHR board, due to which I was not able to do measurement of power consumption.

5. Other Example codes

One can find several other example codes at following link: 

MAX32650 example codes

Alternatively, one can find the above example codes at following location in your system locally at:

C:\MaximSDK\Examples\MAX32650

Issues faced 

1. Maxim SDK is a robust development kit with well-supported example codes provided by Analog Devices which can be invaluable for developers who are already familiar with the coding environment. but online availability of code for direct drag and drop for particular application is hard to find. The documentation is comprehensive, allowing experienced users to effectively navigate and implement required functionalities. However, there is relative scarcity of online resources for direct drag-and-drop code tailored to specific application. This might pose a problem to a beginner for doing quick development.  
2. During testing, an issue was encountered while using the SD Card slot on the MAX32650FTHR board. The problem may stem from a damaged SD Card slot, a one-off hardware failure that unfortunately hindered further evaluation of the MAX32650FTHR board’s logging capabilities.
3. The learning curve for Eclipse IDE can be steep, especially for beginners. Support for VS Code makes it quite helpful though. Still, Eclipse IDE is not as user friendly compared to IDEs from other vendors like STM32CubeIDE in terms of:          Lack of intuitive shortcuts and no UI based pinout configuration which can slow down the development process

Conclusion

MAX32650FTHR board is a great board to work on. With a wide variety of features available, and good documentation support, the development was pretty good. I would recommend this product to anyone developing IoT, Battery powered applications and at any place where requirement of low power is necessitated for their product. With support for debugging using VS Code extension, the development becomes easier and quite smooth. 

With additional components like EVAL-ADXL355-PMDZ and  EVAL-ADT7420-PMDZ boards provided with the kit, it helped showcase the ease of connectivity and compatibility with other PMDZ boards. With a wide variety of applications possible, this device can be used extensively in various places.

Suitable Applications

• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Wearable devices
• Portable medical devices
• Automotive

Resources