Particle Electron¶

The Particle Electron is a GSM enabled development platform for creating connected devices with M2M in mind. Particle Electron combines a powerful ARM Cortex M3 micro-controller with a 3G/2G gsm module from UBlox (U260 or G350). Particle Electron uses the STM32F205RG Cortex M3 microcontroller.

In addition to having 1Mb of internal flash memory for storing the firmware, the Electron also features 128k of Ram and 120 MHz of clock.

Pin Mapping¶

Particle Electron Official Schematic, Reference Design & Pin Mapping are available on the official Particle Electron datasheet page.

Flash Layout¶

The internal flash of the Particle Electron is organized into sectors of different size according to the following table:

Device Summary¶

• Microcontroller: ARM 32-bit Cortex™-M3 CPU Core
• Operating Voltage: 3.3V
• Input Voltage: 3.6-6V
• Digital I/O Pins (DIO): 28
• Analog Input Pins (ADC): 14
• Analog Outputs Pins (DAC): 1
• UARTs: 5
• SPIs: 2
• I2Cs: 1
• CANs: 1
• Flash Memory: 1Mb
• SRAM: 128 KB
• Clock Speed: 120Mhz

Power¶

The Electron is equipped with on device power management circuit powered by BQ24195 pm unit and MAX17043 fuel gauge. The Electron can be powered via the VIN (3.9V-12VDC) pin, the USB Micro B connector or a LiPo battery.

When powered from a LiPo battery alone, the power management IC switches off the internal regulator and supplies power to the system directly from the battery.

Connect, Register, Virtualize and Program¶

On Windows machines the Particle Electron USB Drivers are required by the Zerynth Studio for accessing the serial port establishing a connection with the STM32 UART.

To install the drivers on Windows plug the Electron on an USB port, unzip the downloaded package, go to the Windows Device Manager and double-click on the Particle device under “Other Devices”. Click Update Driver, and select Browse for driver software on your computer. Navigate to the folder where the package has been unzipped and select it (Note that right now, the drivers are in a Spark folder and are named photon.cat).

On MAC OSX and Linux USB drivers are not required.

#Particle Electron
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2b04", ATTRS{idProduct}=="d00a", MODE="0666", GROUP="users", ENV{ID_MM_DEVICE_IGNORE}="1"
SUBSYSTEMS=="tty", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2b04", ATTRS{idProduct}=="d00a", MODE="0666", GROUP="users", ENV{ID_MM_DEVICE_IGNORE}="1"
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2b04", ATTRS{idProduct}=="c00a", MODE="0666", GROUP="users", ENV{ID_MM_DEVICE_IGNORE}="1"
SUBSYSTEMS=="tty", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2b04", ATTRS{idProduct}=="c00a", MODE="0666", GROUP="users", ENV{ID_MM_DEVICE_IGNORE}="1"

Once connected on a USB port, if drivers have been correctly installed, the Electron can be seen as Virtual Serial port and it is automatically recognized by the Zerynth Studio and listed in the Device Management Toolbar as “Particle Electron DFU Mode” if the device is in DFU Mode, otherwise as “Particle Electron”.

To register and virtualize an Electron, it is necessary to put the Electron in DFU Mode (Device Firmware Upgrade) as reported in the official Particle Electron Guide.

The official Particle Core DFU driver and the related installation procedure are reported here but they also work for the Particle Electron.

Follow these steps to register and virtualize a Particle Electron:

• Put the Electron in DFU Mode (Device Firmware Upgrade):
  • Hold down BOTH buttons (reset and setup);
  • Release only the reset button, while holding down the setup button;
  • Wait for the LED to start flashing flashing magenta, then yellow;
  • Release the setup button; the device is now in DFU Mode (yellow blinking led);
• Select the Electron on the Device Management Toolbar;
• Register the device by clicking the “Z” button from the Zerynth Studio;
• Create a Virtual Machine for the device by clicking the “Z” button for the second time;
• Virtualize the device by clicking the “Z” button for the third time.

After virtualization, the Particle Electron is ready to be programmed and the Zerynth scripts uploaded. Just Select the virtualized device from the “Device Management Toolbar” and click the dedicated “upload” button of Zerynth Studio and reset the device by pressing the Reset on-board button when asked.

Firmware Over the Air update (FOTA)¶

The Firmware Over the Air feature allows to update the device firmware at runtime. Zerynth FOTA in the Particle Electron device is available for bytecode and VM.

Flash Layout is shown in table below:

Power Management and Secure Firmware¶

Power Management feature allows to optimize power consumption by putting the device in low consumption state.

Secure Firmware feature allows to detect and recover from malfunctions and, when supported, to protect the running firmware (e.g. disabling the external access to flash or assigning protected RAM memory to critical parts of the system).

Both these features are strongly platform dependent; more information at Power Management - STM32F section and Secure Firmware - STM32F section.