Programming ATMEL SAMDXX Series

[ciclonite]

Hi all!
I'm Giovanni from italy, and right now i start to learn 32-bit fascinating ARM world and in particular ATMEL SAMD11-21 Cortex M0+. I' have some NOOB question about ARM to ask.
I'm develop a small PCB with kicad for these MCU following the datasheet. But for programming and eventually debug the MCU i need a programmer.
I've see the ATMEL ICE but there are a lot of variant for this.. BASIC , FULL VERSION, PCBA VERSION ...
For example the PCBA version cost about 47€ , the basic Version 90€ and the full version 140€..
Where is the difference for these boards? Which is more convenient for me? Someone can explain the difference beetween the board?
Thanks a lot!
G.

[ataradov]

Where is the difference for these boards?

PCBA is just a bare PCB with no cables, plastic enclosure or anything else.
BASIC has plastic enclosure, but has no cables or adapter boards (I think it has one small 10-pin cable).
FULL has everything you need in the package.

All of them are functionally the same.

If you are careful and want to do things on the cheap, then PCBA is a way to go. You will have to acquire corresponding cable, and they are not cheap, but still cheap enough.

[ciclonite]

Thanks a lot ataradov,
The ICE is the same, the version are diversified by accessories.
Thanks again for your explanation.
G.

[westfw]

There's an Atmel SAMD10 Xplained Mini evaluation board sold by Atmel for less than $20 that includes an onboard programmer/debugger...

[ataradov]

There's an Atmel SAMD10 Xplained Mini evaluation board sold by Atmel for less than $20 that includes an onboard programmer/debugger...

Except that mEDBG is stupidly slow, since it is only a Full Speed device.

[ajb]

There's an Atmel SAMD10 Xplained Mini evaluation board sold by Atmel for less than $20 that includes an onboard programmer/debugger...

Except that mEDBG is stupidly slow, since it is only a Full Speed device.

I thought the Xplained boards used the same EDBG chip as in the Atmel ICE, is that not the case, or is the Xplained version crippled or something?

[ataradov]

I thought the Xplained boards used the same EDBG chip as in the Atmel ICE, is that not the case, or is the Xplained version crippled or something?

Xplained Pro do. But Xplained Mini use mEDBG based on ATmega32U4, which is compatible on a protocol level, but is limited to Full Speed mode only.

[westfw]

mEDBG is stupidly slow, since it is only a Full Speed device.

I wouldn't expect "Full speed" to be that much of a limitation (~10Mbps!), though the mEDBG is pretty slow.

I'd offer other explanations:
1) Other resource limitations of the ATmega32u4 limit performance.
2) CMSIS/DAP might be inherently inefficient (or badly implemented) over high-transaction-cost paths (for example, we've noticed that TI's CMSIS/DAP implementation in their MSP432 launchpad is significantly slower than the TI proprietary debug protocol.)
3) No one has expended much effort toward improving the performance of what is supposed to be a second-class debug product anyway.
(I suspect (3) is the most likely)

Do you know of any open source CMSIS/DAP to SWD implementations?

[andersm]

Do you know of any open source CMSIS/DAP to SWD implementations?

There's at least ARM/mbed's implementation. IIRC CMSIS-DAP uses USB HID (probably because handling USB devices on Windows is such a massive pain), which does limit throughput.

[ataradov]

I wouldn't expect "Full speed" to be that much of a limitation (~10Mbps!), though the mEDBG is pretty slow.

CMSIS/DAP protocol uses interrupt endpoints and HID protocol, so maximum data rate with full speed devices is 64000 bytes per second.

Do you know of any open source CMSIS/DAP to SWD implementations?

Well, of course I do. I did one - https://github.com/ataradov/free-dap

ARM's is not really open, as it license locked to be run on ARM-based devices only.

[andersm]

ARM's is not really open, as it license locked to be run on ARM-based devices only.

In CMSIS 5, the license has been changed to plain Apache 2.0, no additional EULAs (that applies to everything, not just CMSIS-DAP).