1 Description

The SAM R30 is a series of Ultra low-power microcontrollers equipped with an IEEE® 802.15.4-2003/2006/2011-compliant RF interface for the sub-1 GHz frequency bands such as 780 MHz (China), 868 MHz (Europe) and 915 MHz (North America). It is using the 32-bit ARM® Cortex®-M0+ processor at max. 48 MHz (2.46 CoreMark®/MHz) and offers 256 KB of Flash and 40 KB of SRAM in both 32- and 48-pin packages. Sophisticated power management technologies, such as power domain gating, SleepWalking, Ultra low-power peripherals and more, allow for very low current consumptions.

The highly-configurable peripherals include a touch controller supporting capacitive interfaces with proximity sensing.

The sub-GHz RF interface supports OQPSK and BPSK formats per the IEEE specifications. Additional proprietary formats include high data-rate and wideband BPSK. Built-in features include spread spectrum radio, automated packet handing and power management. With link budgets up to 120 dBm, the SAMR30 transceiver is a great alternative to 2.4 GHz with power hungry range extenders.

The SAM R30 devices provide the following features: in-system programmable Flash, 16-channel direct memory access (DMA) controller, 12-channel Event System, programmable interrupt controller, up to 28 programmable I/O pins, 32-bit real-time clock and calendar, up to three 16-bit Timer/Counters (TC) and three Timer/Counters for Control (TCC), where each TC/TCC can be configured to perform frequency and waveform generation, accurate program execution timing or input capture with time and frequency measurement of digital signals. The TCs can operate in 8- or 16-bit mode, selected TCs can be cascaded to form a 32-bit TC, and three timer/counters have extended functions optimized for motor, lighting and other control applications. Two TCC can operate in 24-bit mode, the third TCC can operate in 16-bit mode. The series provide one full-speed USB 2.0 embedded host and device interface; up to six Serial Communication Modules (SERCOM) that each can be configured to act as an USART, UART, SPI, I²C up to 3.4 MHz, SMBus, PMBus and LIN slave; up to twenty channel 1 MSPS 12-bit ADC with programmable gain and optional oversampling and decimation supporting up to 16-bit resolution, two analog comparators with window mode, Peripheral Touch Controller supporting up to 18 buttons, sliders, wheels and proximity sensing; programmable Watchdog Timer, brown-out detector and power-on reset and two-pin Serial Wire Debug (SWD) program and debug interface.

All devices have accurate low-power external and internal oscillators. All oscillators can be used as a source for the system clock. Different clock domains can be independently configured to run at different frequencies, enabling power saving by running each peripheral at its optimal clock frequency, thus maintaining a high CPU frequency while reducing power consumption.

The SAM R30 devices have three software-selectable sleep modes, idle, standby and backup. In idle mode, the CPU is stopped while all other functions may be kept running. In standby, all clocks and functions are stopped except those selected to continue running. In this mode, all RAMs and logic contents are retained. The device supports SleepWalking. This feature allows some peripherals to wake up from sleep based on predefined conditions, thus allowing some internal operations like DMA transfer and/or the CPU to wake up only when needed, for example, when a threshold is crossed or a result is ready. The Event System supports synchronous and asynchronous events, allowing peripherals to receive, react to and send events even in standby mode.

The SAM R30 devices have two software-selectable performance levels (PL0 and PL2) allowing the user to scale the lowest core voltage level that will support the operating frequency. To further minimize current consumption, specifically leakage dissipation, the SAM R30 devices utilize a power domain gating technique with retention to turn off some logic areas while keeping its logic state. This technique is fully handled in hardware.

The Flash program memory can be reprogrammed in-system through the SWD interface. The same interface can also be used for nonintrusive, on-chip debugging of application code. A boot loader running in the device can use any communication interface to download and upgrade the application program in the Flash memory.

The SAM R30 devices are supported with a full suite of programs and system development tools, including C compilers, macro assemblers, program debugger/simulators, programmers and evaluation kits.