4

Atmel AVR1923

8394B-AVR-02/12

3 General information

The Atmel AVR XMEGA-A3BU Xplained kit is intended to demonstrate the Atmel

AVR ATxmega256A3BU microcontroller. Figure 3-1 shows the available feature on

the board.

Figure 3-1. Overview of the XMEGA A3BU Xplained kit.

3.1 Preprogrammed firmware

The ATxmega256A3BU on the XMEGA-A3BU Xplained is pre-programmed with a

boot loader and a default firmware. The detailed description of the software is

available

in

the

XMEGA-A3BU

Xplained

Software

User

Guide

(http://atmel.com/dyn/resources/prod_documents/doc8413.pdf).

3.2 Power supply

The kit needs an external power supply that can deliver 5V and up to 500mA. The

actual current requirement for the board is much less than 500mA but in order to be

able to power optional expansion boards this margin is recommended.

The power can be applied to the board either via the USB connector or on pin 10 on

the header J3. The USB connector is the preferred input because it is then possible to

connect expansion boards on top of the J3 header.

The 5V (USB supply voltage) is regulated down to 3.3V with an onboard LDO

regulator, which provides power to the entire board. Expansion top boards that

require 5V will get this from the header J3 pin 10.

3.3 Measuring the Atmel AVR XMEGA power consumption

As part of an evaluation of the ATxmega256A3BU, it can be of interest to measure its

power consumption. Because the XMEGA has a separate power plane

(VCC_MCU_P3V3) on this board it is possible to measure the current consumption