Digilent Nanocon User Manual
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Revision: February 9, 2009
Note: This document applies to REV A-B of the board.
www. d i g i l e n t i n c . c om
215 E Main Suite D | Pullman, WA 99163
(509) 334 6306 Voice and Fax
Overview
The Nanocon board is useful for
embedded control and robotics projects for
both students and hobbyists.
The Nanocon’s versatile design and
programmable microcontroller allows you
to control different external devices and
program the board for multiple uses. The
board has many I/O connectors, power
supply options, and supports a number of
programming tools including ATMEL AVR®
STUDIO 4, and WinAVR.
Power
connector
4 LEDs
The Nanocon has a number of connections
for peripheral devices. Digilent peripheral
modules (Pmods™) include H-bridges,
analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog
converters, a speaker, switches, buttons,
LEDs, RS232 converters, screw terminal
connectors, BNC connectors, servo
motors, and more. For more information
see www.digilentinc.com.
Features include:
• ATmega168 microcontroller
• four 6-pin connectors for Digilent
Pmod peripheral module boards
• four LEDs
• ESD protection for all I/O pins
• in-system programming support
16K Flash
(Internal)
512 EEPROM
(Internal)
1k SRAM
(Internal)
ATMega168
MLF32
4
JA
connectors
TM
4 44
JB
IO
J2
TW I
Nanocon
2
J1
SPI/
ISP
TW I/
RS232
Four 6-pin PMOD
Nanocon Circuit Diagram
Internal
Oscillator
UART, SPI,
& TWI ports
JC
IO
using the Digilent parallel JTAG
cable or the Digilent USB JTAG/SPI
cable.
Doc: 502-095 page 1 of 6
Copyright Digilent, Inc. All rights reserved. Other product and company names mentioned may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Nanocon Reference Manual
Features of the ATmega168 include:
•
master/slave serial peripheral
interface (SPI)
•
programmable serial USART
interface
•
Atmel two wire serial interface (TWI)
•
eight channel, 10-bit ADC
•
two 8-bit timer/counters
•
one 16-bit timer/counter
•
16KB program flash
•
512 byte EEPROM
•
1KB internal SRAM
•
analog comparator.
For more information on the ATmega168
microcontroller, refer to the data sheet
available at www.atmel.com.
Functional Description
The Nanocon is designed for embedded
control and robotic applications as well as
microprocessor experimentation.
Embedded firmware, suitable for many
applications, can be programmed into the
Nanocon’s ATmega168 microcontroller.
Although the Nanocon can be used as a
stand-alone microcontroller board, it is also
designed to be part of a larger system
using a distributed processing architecture.
Connector J1 allows the Nanocon to be
plugged directly into other Digilent
microcontroller boards, such as the
Cerebot™ or the Minicon™. Using a 6-wire
cable and the Digilent Module Interface
Board, it can be connected to a Digilent
FPGA board.
The Nanocon can be programmed with
firmware to perform local control functions.
It can then be controlled by, and report
back to, a higher level controller in the host
controller board. For example, the
Digilent, Inc.
www.digilentinc.com
Nanocon could be programmed to perform
closed-loop motor speed control. It could
relieve extra work for the host processor,
when performing the motor speed control,
by processing commands from the host
and controlling the motors itself.
Communication Options
Connector J1 provides access to the
master/slave SPI. SPI is a high-speed,
synchronous, serial interface used by
many serial peripheral devices like A/D and
D/A converters. The SPI interface is used
both for in-system-programming the
ATmega168 and for a user-accessible SPI
port. The Digilent PmodAD1 and
PmodDA1 modules use the SPI interface.
Connector J1 and the SPI interface are
also used for in-system-programming of
the ATmega168 microcontroller.
Connectors JA and J2 provide access to
the Atmel two-wire interface (TWI). The
TWI is a medium speed (200-400 Kbps)
serial bus that allows up to 128 devices to
connect. Connector J2 can be used for
continuing the TWI bus to other boards.
The ATmega168 microcontroller provides a
USART that can be used for asynchronous or
synchronous serial communications. However,
the Nanocon doesn’t provide for a crystal
oscillator, and the internal RC oscillator isn’t
accurate enough for reliable asynchronous
communications. It is sometimes possible to
tune the oscillator using the calibration register
to allow asynchronous communications to
work.
6-Pin Pmod Headers
The Nanocon has four 6-pin header
connectors for connecting to generalpurpose, off-board digital I/O or to specific
ATmega168 features like analog-to-digital
www.digilentinc.com page 2 of 6
Copyright Digilent, Inc. All rights reserved. Other product and company names mentioned may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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