$25 Ameba Arduino IoT Board Powered by Realtek RTL8195AM MCU Supports WiFi and NFC

Ameba Arduino is another development board for the Internet of Things, but beside WiFi connectivity, it also includes an NFC tag, and can support Ethernet via Arduino compatible headers. The brain of the board is Realtek RTL8195AM ARM Cortex M3 MCU that includes WiFi connectivity, hardware SSL, SRAM, and flash.

Ameba Arduino Specifications:

MCU – Realtek RTL8195AM ARM Cortex M3 @ up to 166MHz with 512KB SRAM, 1MB ROM, WiFi connectivity, hardware SSL engine
Memory – 2MB SDRAM
Connectivity – WiFi 802.11 b/g/n 1T1R with PCB antenna and external antenna connector, NFC tag with read/write Function, 10/100M Ethernet via expansion headers
USB – 1x micro USB OTG port, 1x micro USB host port
Expansion Headers
- SDIO Device/SD card controller
- Up to 30x GPIOs
- 2x SPI interfaces supporting master and slave modes
- 3x UART interfaces including 2 HS-UART and one log UART
- 4x I2C Interfaces supporting master and slave mode
- 2x I2S/PCM interfaces supporting master and slave mode
- 4x PWM interfaces
- 2x ADC interfaces, 1x DAC interface
Debugging – micro USB for CMSIS-DAP debugger, UART console, and JTAG
Misc – DAP update, DAP reset, and Ameba reset buttons
Power Supply – 5V via micro USB port
Pinout Diagram – Click to Enlarge

A sensor board with motion sensors (9-axis), a temperature and humidity sensor, a proximity sensor, a pressure sensor, an hear rate sensor, and a buzzer is also mentioned in the documentation, but I could not find pictures or more much details about this extension board.

You’ll need a (Windows) PC, a micro USB to USB cable, an RS-232 to UART board, and optionally a JTAG cable to work with the board.

Beside programming with the Arduino IDE, the company also provides an mbed + FreeRTOS SDK for more flexibility.

More technical details, including detailed tutorials, can be found on Amebaiot.com, and the Ameba Arduino board can be purchased on eBay for $24.99 + shipping.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.