Energy Micro EFM32 Tiny Gecko (Cortex-M3) Starter Kit Unboxing

I’ve been lucky recently, after winning a TI Piccolo controlStick last month, I’ve just received Energy Micro EFM32 Starter Kit (EFM32-TG-STK3300) based on EFM32 Tiny Gecko MCU.

This development board include:

• EFM32 Tiny Gecko Cortex-M3 MCU
• 8×20 LCD
• A light sensor
• A touch slider
• A battery compartment
• SEGGER J-Link mini USB port
• 2 Button + 1 reset button
• 1 User LEDs
• 2 expansion ports.
• Lots of through holes to access the different pins of the MCU

Today, I’ll just show the content of the kit and next time, I’ll post more about the things I’ve done with it.

Here’s the package of the EFM32 Starter Kit.

The 2 gecko eggs were not included… Actually, those are house geckos eggs which are smaller than real geckos. We’ve got those here as well, but there are very shy, whereas house geckos just run around the walls and ceilings all day. Well, it’s like Energy Micro released the Gecko board back to its natural environment instead of freezing in Norway, where the company is located :).

Back to the starter kit, let’s open the package and see what inside the box.

The package contains the EFM32 Tiny Gecko board (that’s a relief), a USB A to USB mini B cable, a CD with IAR Embedded workbench for ARM, Kickstart edition and a Quick Start Guide as expected. Energy Micro must like me, because they also included a cool gecko keyring and a pack of 8 EFM32 chewing gums.

The Quick Start Guide just list the content of the package and tells you to go to www.energymicro/simplicity to get started with the Starter Kit. More on that in an upcoming post.

Let’s have a look at the board a little bit closer.

On the left, we’ve got the mini USB/J-Link port at the top, the battery compartment and the switch, in the middle, there is the LCD and the MCU and on the right of the board, the expansion header, the light sensor, 2 buttons, the LED and the touch slider. You’ll also notice the through holes at the top and bottom of the board.

There are no components at the back of the board.

If you are interested in this board, you can go to Energy Micro EFM32 Tiny Gecko Starter Kit page for more information and links to buy it (70 USD). There is no documentation included in the package, so you need to download and install Simplicity then download and access the documentation there.

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