Datasheet

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chipKIT™ Wi-FIRE™ Board Reference Manual
Revised November 11, 2015
This manual applies to the chipKIT Wi-FIRE rev. C
DOC#: 502-273
Copyright Digilent, Inc. All rights reserved.
Other product and company names mentioned may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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Production Limited Quantity Release
The production boards of the chipKIT Wi-FIRE are manufactured using the Microchip PIC32MZ2048EFG100 MCU.
Earlier pre-production, Rev B and earlier, uses the PIC32MZ2048ECG100 MCU. The MCUs are pin for pin
compatible, however the PIC32MZ2048EFG100 has substantially improved ADCs, and there is an FPU coprocessor.
For the most part, code written to the pre-production Wi-FIRE will run unaltered on the Rev C or newer Wi-FIREs,
with the exception of the ADCs. The chipKIT core will support either MCU, even with respect to the new ADCs, as
long as the chipKIT hardware abstraction API, analogRead(), was used; no sketch source code change is required.
The production PCB is identical between the Rev B and Rev C, with the exception of the silk screen to indicate Rev
C. For the most up to date information regarding the chipKIT Wi-FIRE reference manual, please visit Digilent’s Wiki
page.
Overview
The chipKIT Wi-FIRE is based on the popular Arduino™ open-source hardware prototyping platform and adds the
performance of the Microchip PIC32MZ microcontroller. The Wi-FIRE has a WiFi MRF24 and SD card on the board,
both with dedicated SPI signals. The Wi-FIRE board takes advantage of the powerful PIC32MZ2048ECG
microcontroller. This microcontroller features a 32-bit MIPS processor core running at 200 MHz, 2MB of flash
program memory, and 512K of SRAM data memory. The Wi-FIRE can be programmed using the Multi-Platform
Integrated Development Environment (MPIDE), an environment based on the original Arduino IDE, modified to
support PIC32. It contains everything needed to start developing embedded applications. The Wi-FIRE features a
USB serial port interface for connection to the MPIDE and can be powered via USB or by an external power supply.
In addition, the Wi-FIRE is fully compatible with the advanced Microchip MPLAB®X IDE and works with all MPLAB X
compatible in-system programmer/debuggers, such as the Microchip PICkit™3 or the Digilent® chipKIT PGM. The
Wi-FIRE is easy to use and suitable for both beginners and advanced users experimenting with electronics and
embedded control systems.
The analogRead() function in MPIDE was updated to mitigate the complexities and to improve the accuracy of the
PIC32MZ ADC by careful selection of sampling times and oversampling of the input. These optimizations are only
available when calling analogRead(); the raw ADC performance will be obtained if the peripheral is referenced
directly.