NXP FRDM-CR20A 2.4GHz 802.15.4 Wireless Transceiver

The FRDM-CR20A development board is an evaluation environment for the Freescale MCR20AVHM SoC transceiver (MCR20A), a 2.4GHz Home Automation, Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) transceiver for the IEEE 802.15.4 Standard and proprietary protocols

Hello World

Import programmcr20_connectivity_test

The MCR20A Connectivity Test application is an SMAC based demo application which provides the user with means to test basic transmission-reception functionalities along with several advanced testing features based on the ASP and SMAC APIs.

Library

Import libraryfsl_phy_mcr20a

A library implementing IEEE 802.15.4 PHY functionality for the MCR20A transceiver. The PHY sublayer provides two services: the PHY data service and the PHY management service interfacing to the PHY sublayer management entity (PLME) service access point (SAP) (known as PLME-SAP). The PHY data service enables the transmission and reception of PHY protocol data units (PSDUs) over the media (radio).

Pinout

Datasheet

http://cache.freescale.com/files/rf_if/doc/data_sheet/MCR20AVHM.pdf

Notes

The Freescale Freedom FRDM-CR20A evaluation board is a small, low-power, cost-effective reference design for the MCR20A transceiver, in a shield form factor, compatible with existing Freescale Freedom development platforms like FRDM-K64F.

It provides a platform to evaluate the MCR20A transceiver, and develop software and applications. The device is accompanied by a 32 MHz reference oscillator crystal, RF circuitry including antenna, and supporting circuitry. The FRDM-CR20A board is intended as the core PCB for MCR20A device evaluation and application development, and can be used as daughter card to other development boards within the Freescale Freedom development platform, as an application specific such as a shield card.

Features

  • MCR20AVHM: low-power, high-performance 2.4 GHz IEEE 802.15.4 compliant transceiver with Dual Pan functionality
  • Programmable output power -32 dBm to +8 dBm at the SMA connector, no trap
  • Receiver sensitivity: –102 dBm, typical
  • PCB inverted F-type antenna and SMA RF port
  • Minimum number of matching components and external balun
  • 1 RGB LED indicator
  • 2 push button switches
  • Arduino compatible hence can fit directly onto a Freescale Freedom board
  • Supports Thread Networking Protocol, ZigBee stacks, SMAC and custom protocols

Documentation

Hardware

FRDM-CR20A

Where to buy

buy FRDM-CR20A

Freescale SMAC library

Import libraryfsl_smac

The Freescale MCR20A Simple Media Access Controller (MCR20A SMAC) is a simple ANSI C based codebase available as sample source code. The MCR20A SMAC is used for developing proprietary RF transceiver applications using Freescale’s MCR20A 2.4 GHz transceiver 

Example Software

Rock, Paper, Scissors Game - ArmTechCon 2015 mbed Zone

Import programmcr20_RPS_GameController

Rock, Paper, Scissors game - remote controller

Import programmcr20_RPS_Coordinator

Rock, Paper, Scissors game coordinator

Wireless UART

Import programmcr20_wireless_uart

The MCR20A Wireless UART application functions as an wireless UART bridge between two (one-to-one) or several (one to many) boards. The application can be used with both a TERM, or with software that is capable of opening a serial port and writing to or reading from it. The characters sent or received are not necessarily ASCII printable characters.

MCR20A Connectivity Test

Import programmcr20_connectivity_test

The MCR20A Connectivity Test application is an SMAC based demo application which provides the user with means to test basic transmission-reception functionalities along with several advanced testing features based on the ASP and SMAC APIs.