Beginner
10 min

Experience voltage versatility at its best with TPS65132 and PIC18F45K80

Dual dynamo: Charging into the positive and negative zones

Boost-INV 3 Click with Curiosity HPC

Published Nov 01, 2023

Click board™

Boost-INV 3 Click

Dev Board

Curiosity HPC

Compiler

NECTO Studio

MCU

PIC18F45K80

Achieve voltage symmetry effortlessly with our power supply. Where positives and negatives align, our solution stands ready to meet your diverse electrical requirements with precision and ease.

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Hardware Overview

How does it work?

Boost-INV 3 Click is based on the TPS65132, a dual-output power supply from Texas Instruments. The TPS65132 operates with a single inductor scheme to provide high efficiency with a small solution size. The synchronous boost converter generates a positive voltage regulated by an integrated LDO, providing the positive supply rail on the +VOUT terminal. The negative supply rail, available on the -VOUT terminal, is generated by an integrated negative charge pump driven from the boost converter output REG pin. The output voltage is

programmable via an I2C compatible interface, from ±6V to ±4V in 100mV steps with ±5.4V pre-programmed output voltage and a maximum 80mA output current. Both output voltages can be set independently, and their sequencing is also independent. This Click board™ communicates with the host MCU using the standard I2C 2-Wire interface, with a maximum clock frequency in Fast data transfer of up to 400kHz (400kbps). Pulling ENP or ENN pins of the mikroBUS socket to a low logic state turns off either rail (+VOUT or -VOUT,

respectively) and pulling both pins to a low logic state turns off the device entirely (the internal oscillator of the TPS65132 continues running to allow access to the I2C interface). This Click board™ can operate with either 3.3V or 5V logic voltage levels selected via the VCC SEL jumper. This way, both 3.3V and 5V capable MCUs can use the communication lines properly. Also, this Click board™ comes equipped with a library containing easy-to-use functions and an example code that can be used for further development.

Boost-INV 3 Click hardware overview image

Features overview

Development board

Curiosity HPC, standing for Curiosity High Pin Count (HPC) development board, supports 28- and 40-pin 8-bit PIC MCUs specially designed by Microchip for the needs of rapid development of embedded applications. This board has two unique PDIP sockets, surrounded by dual-row expansion headers, allowing connectivity to all pins on the populated PIC MCUs. It also contains a powerful onboard PICkit™ (PKOB), eliminating the need for an external programming/debugging tool, two mikroBUS™ sockets for Click board™ connectivity, a USB connector, a set of indicator LEDs, push button switches and a variable potentiometer. All

these features allow you to combine the strength of Microchip and Mikroe and create custom electronic solutions more efficiently than ever. Each part of the Curiosity HPC development board contains the components necessary for the most efficient operation of the same board. An integrated onboard PICkit™ (PKOB) allows low-voltage programming and in-circuit debugging for all supported devices. When used with the MPLAB® X Integrated Development Environment (IDE, version 3.0 or higher) or MPLAB® Xpress IDE, in-circuit debugging allows users to run, modify, and troubleshoot their custom software and hardware

quickly without the need for additional debugging tools. Besides, it includes a clean and regulated power supply block for the development board via the USB Micro-B connector, alongside all communication methods that mikroBUS™ itself supports. Curiosity HPC development board allows you to create a new application in just a few steps. Natively supported by Microchip software tools, it covers many aspects of prototyping thanks to many number of different Click boards™ (over a thousand boards), the number of which is growing daily.

Curiosity HPC double image

Microcontroller Overview

MCU Card / MCU

default

Architecture

PIC

MCU Memory (KB)

32

Silicon Vendor

Microchip

Pin count

40

RAM (Bytes)

3648

Used MCU Pins

mikroBUS™ mapper

NC
NC
AN
Positive Voltage Rail Enable
RD0
RST
NC
NC
CS
NC
NC
SCK
NC
NC
MISO
NC
NC
MOSI
Power Supply
3.3V
3.3V
Ground
GND
GND
Negative Voltage Rail Enable
RC2
PWM
NC
NC
INT
NC
NC
TX
NC
NC
RX
I2C Clock
RC3
SCL
I2C Data
RC4
SDA
Power Supply
5V
5V
Ground
GND
GND
1

Take a closer look

Schematic

Boost-INV 3 Click Schematic schematic

Step by step

Project assembly

Curiosity HPC front no-mcu image hardware assembly

Start by selecting your development board and Click board™. Begin with the Curiosity HPC as your development board.

Curiosity HPC front no-mcu image hardware assembly
GNSS2 Click front image hardware assembly
MCU DIP 40 hardware assembly
Prog-cut hardware assembly
GNSS2 Click complete accessories setup image hardware assembly
Curiosity HPC Access MB 1 - upright/background hardware assembly
Necto image step 2 hardware assembly
Necto image step 3 hardware assembly
Necto image step 4 hardware assembly
Necto image step 5 hardware assembly
Necto image step 6 hardware assembly
Necto DIP image step 7 hardware assembly
Necto No Display image step 8 hardware assembly
Necto image step 9 hardware assembly
Necto image step 10 hardware assembly
Debug Image Necto Step hardware assembly

Track your results in real time

Application Output

After loading the code example, pressing the "DEBUG" button builds and programs it on the selected setup.

Application Output Step 1

After programming is completed, a header with buttons for various actions available in the IDE appears. By clicking the green "PLAY "button, we start reading the results achieved with Click board™.

Application Output Step 3

Upon completion of programming, the Application Output tab is automatically opened, where the achieved result can be read. In case of an inability to perform the Debug function, check if a proper connection between the MCU used by the setup and the CODEGRIP programmer has been established. A detailed explanation of the CODEGRIP-board connection can be found in the CODEGRIP User Manual. Please find it in the RESOURCES section.

Application Output Step 4

Software Support

Library Description

This library contains API for Boost-INV 3 Click driver.

Key functions:

  • boostinv3_set_enp - Boost-INV 3 set ENP pin state function.

  • boostinv3_set_pos_out - Boost-INV 3 set positive output voltage function.

  • boostinv3_set_neg_out - Boost-INV 3 set negative output voltage function.

Open Source

Code example

This example can be found in NECTO Studio. Feel free to download the code, or you can copy the code below.

/*!
 * @file main.c
 * @brief Boost-INV 3 Click example
 *
 * # Description
 * This library contains API for the Boost-INV 3 Click driver.
 * This driver provides the functions to set the output voltage treshold.
 *
 * The demo application is composed of two sections :
 *
 * ## Application Init
 * Initialization of I2C module and log UART.
 * After driver initialization, default settings enable the positive and 
 * negative output and sets the output voltage to 4 V.
 *
 * ## Application Task
 * This example demonstrates the use of the Boost-INV 3 Click board by changing 
 * output voltage every 5 seconds starting from 4 V up to 6 V.
 *
 * @author Stefan Ilic
 *
 */

#include "board.h"
#include "log.h"
#include "boostinv3.h"

#define BOOSTINV3_MIN_VOL_LVL           4.0f
#define BOOSTINV3_INCREMENT             0.1f

static boostinv3_t boostinv3;
static log_t logger;

void application_init ( void ) 
{
    log_cfg_t log_cfg;  /**< Logger config object. */
    boostinv3_cfg_t boostinv3_cfg;  /**< Click config object. */

    /** 
     * Logger initialization.
     * Default baud rate: 115200
     * Default log level: LOG_LEVEL_DEBUG
     * @note If USB_UART_RX and USB_UART_TX 
     * are defined as HAL_PIN_NC, you will 
     * need to define them manually for log to work. 
     * See @b LOG_MAP_USB_UART macro definition for detailed explanation.
     */
    LOG_MAP_USB_UART( log_cfg );
    log_init( &logger, &log_cfg );
    log_info( &logger, " Application Init " );

    // Click initialization.
    boostinv3_cfg_setup( &boostinv3_cfg );
    BOOSTINV3_MAP_MIKROBUS( boostinv3_cfg, MIKROBUS_1 );
    if ( I2C_MASTER_ERROR == boostinv3_init( &boostinv3, &boostinv3_cfg ) ) 
    {
        log_error( &logger, " Communication init." );
        for ( ; ; );
    }
    Delay_ms( 100 );
    
    if ( BOOSTINV3_ERROR == boostinv3_default_cfg ( &boostinv3 ) )
    {
        log_error( &logger, " Default configuration." );
        for ( ; ; );
    }

    log_info( &logger, " Application Task " );
}

void application_task ( void ) 
{
    for ( uint8_t n_cnt = BOOSTINV3_OUT_VOLTAGE_4V; n_cnt <= BOOSTINV3_OUT_VOLTAGE_6V; n_cnt++ )
    {
        err_t error_flag = boostinv3_set_pos_out( &boostinv3, n_cnt );
        error_flag |= boostinv3_set_neg_out( &boostinv3, n_cnt );
        if ( BOOSTINV3_OK == error_flag )
        {
            log_printf( &logger, " Set positive and negative voltage to %.1f V \r\n", 
                        ( BOOSTINV3_MIN_VOL_LVL + n_cnt * BOOSTINV3_INCREMENT ) );
        }
        else
        {
            log_printf( &logger, " Error has occurred!!! \r\n" );
        }
        Delay_ms( 5000 );
    }
}

void main ( void ) 
{
    application_init( );

    for ( ; ; ) 
    {
        application_task( );
    }
}

// ------------------------------------------------------------------------ END

Additional Support

Resources