Microsoft’s Azure Sphere MT3620 Starter Kit

Microsoft’s Azure Sphere MT3620 Starter Kit supports rapid prototyping of highly secure, end-to-end IoT implementations using Microsoft’s Azure Sphere. The small form-factor carrier board includes a production-ready MT3620 Sphere module with Wi-Fi connectivity, along with multiple expansion interfaces for easy integration of sensors, displays, motors, relays, and more.

This Starter Kit highlights Avnet’s certified, production-ready Sphere MT3620 module which is based on the highly integrated MediaTek MT3620AN tri-core Wi-Fi SoC device. Embedded user applications targeting it’s 500 MHz ARM Cortex-A7 application processor are built and debugged using Microsoft’s popular Visual Studio IDE.

The SoC also includes two 200 MHz ARM Cortex-M4F MCU cores to meet real-time I/O requirements, plus a rich variety of on-chip peripherals (GPIO, UART, I2C, SPI, I2S, PWM, ADC) that can be assigned to any of the three processor cores.

The carrier board connects the Sphere module I/Os to two MikroE Click sockets, an I2C Grove connector, a connector supporting the addition of a 128 x 64 OLED graphical display, a 3D accelerometer, 3D Gyro, temperature sensor, and an ambient light sensor. Debugging is accomplished through a USB-to-UART interface, which also provides the necessary 5V power for the board.

User applications for the embedded Sphere controller are developed in C using Microsoft’s Visual Studio IDE and the Azure Sphere SDK. Visual Studio provides a powerful, yet easy-to-use development environment for compiling and debugging application code. The combination of Visual Studio, the versatile carrier card, and the production-ready Sphere module delivers a powerful starting point for IoT developers interested in learning, prototyping, and deploying Azure Sphere based solutions.

Target Applications

1. IoT edge devices
2. Consumer appliances
3. Smart retail
4. Remote access
5. Building automation
6. Factory automation

Useful Links

1. Software Download
2. Azure Sphere Documentation
3. Source Codes

Features:

Carrier Board

1. Two MikroE Click board expansion sockets
2. Grove expansion connector (I2C)
3. On-board sensors

1. Interface for optional OLED 128×64 display
2. USB Interface
3. Supports debug, service & recovery UARTs, and JTAG
4. User push switches and LEDs
5. 5V to 3.3V Power regulation
6. DC Supply Input:
7. USB 5V from a host computer
8. Terminal footprints for external 5VDC and VBAT supplies

Azure Sphere MT3620 Module

1. MT3620AN SoC
2. 3x ISU interfaces pre-configured for UART, SPI, I2C
3. ADC/GPIO: 3x 12-bit ADC inputs (or 3 GPIOs)
4. PWM/GPIO: 9x PWM outputs (or up to 24 GPIOs)
5. RTC (requires VBAT supply)
6. Dual-band 2.4/5GHz 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi
7. Dual-band 2.4/5GHz chip antenna

Package Includes:

1 x Carrier board with Azure Sphere MT3620 module

1 x USB Cable

1 x Quick Start Card