This article serves you as an introduction of Kinetis TWR K40 microcontroller. At the end of this part, you shall be able to answer some basic questions such as: what is Kinetis K40, and what is a Tower System.
- 2. Kinetis K40
- Important Documents:
- External Links
- 3. TWR-K40X256 Kit
- TWR K40X256 Hardware Setup
- Board Tips
- Important Documents
- External Links
2. Kinetis K40
32-bit Kinetis MCUs represent the most scalable portfolio of ARM® Cortex™-M4 MCUs in the industry. Enabled by innovative 90nm Thin Film Storage (TFS) flash technology with unique FlexMemory (configurable embedded EEPROM), Kinetis features the latest low-power innovations and high performance, high precision mixed-signal capability.
For the Freescale Cup Challenge, we have provided several tutorials, example code and projects based on the twr-k40x256-kit. This board is part of the Freescale tower-system, a modular, reusable development platform that allows engineers to quickly prototype new designs.
The K40 chip is a 144 pin package with 512KB of Flash, 245Kb of Program Flash, 4KB of EEProm, and 64KB of SRAM.
Important Documents:
Kinetis K40 Reference Manual
Besides the Reference manual and the Datasheet, the most useful document for learning to program the K40 chip is the:
Kinetis Peripheral Module Quick Reference
Data sheet
Errata
External Links
Freescale's Kinetis K40 Product Page (You can find all the information you want about Kinetis K40 over here)
3. TWR-K40X256 Kit
The TWR-K40X256 Kit is a Freescale evaluation board powered by the Kinetis K40 microcontroller. The Kinetis microcontroller family is a set of 32 bit ARM Cortex M4 chips which feature flexible storage, lower power usage, high performance and optional Floating Point Unit with many useful peripherals. For more information on the Kinetis family see Freescale's Kinetis website. The Tower System is a prototyping platform with interchangeable and reusable modules along with open source design files.
Freescale K40 MCU Tower Module:
TWR K40X256 Hardware Setup
There are several main hardware configuration steps. After installing the battery, once the USB cable has been connected between the evaluation board and PC, it may be necessary to update the chip firmware which requires moving a jumper pin on the evaluation board.
TWR K40X246 Hardware Setup Instructions
Board Tips
The TWR-K40X256 features a socket that can accept a variety of different Tower Plug-in modules featuring sensors, RF transceivers, and more. The General Purpose TWRPI socket provides access to I2C, SPI, IRQs, GPIOs, timers, analog conversion signals, TWRPI ID signals, reset, and voltage supplies. The pinout for the TWRPI Socket is defined in Table 3 of the TWR-K40X256 User's Manual, but the user manual does not describe how to order a connector.
A Samtec connector, part number: SFC-110-T2-L-D-A is the proper female mating connector for the TWR-K40X256 TWRPI socket.
SIDE A/SIDE B
White DOTS for counting Pins
Solder Wire to GND, and to MCU VDD Pin for testing purposes
Important Documents
TWR-K40X256 User's Manual
TWR-K40X256 Schematics
External Links
TWR-K40X256-KIT Webpage
Kinetis Discussion Forum
Tower Geeks Community Website
Tower Geeks Freescale Cup Group
.