This week I have been working on various MSP430 projects including a prototype board based on the MSP430FR2433.
This is a very small chip in a 4mm square package - which doesn't make it really easy to work with - so I decided to design a series of small boards to take full advantage of its diminutive package size.
Today I have been laying out possibly what is the smallest board I have done so far - just 10.24mm x 12.7mm. Remarkably this includes the breakout for the MSP430FR2433 plus an external SPI memory device.
As you can see, things are fairly compact on this board, and I have had to use 0402 resistors and capacitors -the layout was surprisingly easy for a board of this density. All of the components are on the top side - except for an optional additional memory device and an extra decoupling capacitor.
Despite it's small footprint, this is a full microcomputer with up to 256K bytes of external memory. It has 3 communications interfaces which can include up to 2 UARTS and up to 3 SPI ports.
If you are using it with a serial terminal, with one UART dedicated to that purpose, there are a further 14 GPIO lines available - 6 of which have a 10 bit ADC function.
The board is designed to take external memory - which may be either SRAM or FRAM, or a mix of each. If FRAM is used, then the device will retain the contents even after power down.
This module has been designed as a building block, primarily to be used to interface with SPI based peripheral devices - or where space is too tight for even an Arduino Nano.
This is a very small chip in a 4mm square package - which doesn't make it really easy to work with - so I decided to design a series of small boards to take full advantage of its diminutive package size.
Today I have been laying out possibly what is the smallest board I have done so far - just 10.24mm x 12.7mm. Remarkably this includes the breakout for the MSP430FR2433 plus an external SPI memory device.
 |
| Nanode 2016 - Just 0.4 x 0.5" |
Despite it's small footprint, this is a full microcomputer with up to 256K bytes of external memory. It has 3 communications interfaces which can include up to 2 UARTS and up to 3 SPI ports.
If you are using it with a serial terminal, with one UART dedicated to that purpose, there are a further 14 GPIO lines available - 6 of which have a 10 bit ADC function.
The board is designed to take external memory - which may be either SRAM or FRAM, or a mix of each. If FRAM is used, then the device will retain the contents even after power down.
This module has been designed as a building block, primarily to be used to interface with SPI based peripheral devices - or where space is too tight for even an Arduino Nano.