MIKROE has announced a new feature, to be rolled out across its range of Click boards, which reduces size, weight, and power consumption for second-level prototyping and production. With Click Snap, users can develop their systems in the usual way using the add-on peripheral boards and development boards equipped with the mikroBUS socket. When the concept has been proven and code developed, the part of the board with the specific active peripheral circuitry – anything from sensors and communication modules to advanced audio processing and motor control – can be snapped free of the rest of the Click board and used as a System-on-Module (SoM).

The first part to be made available with the new Snap feature is Inclinometer 4 Click which is designed to measure angles of slope or elevation of an object. This board features the FXLS8971CF, a 3-axis low-g MEMS accelerometer from NXP Semiconductor with selectable full-scale ranges of ±2/4/8/16g and features such as selectable output data rates, motion detection, and a 144-byte output data buffer. It is ideal for industrial and medical IoT applications, including asset tracking, equipment monitoring, smart metering, and orientation detection.

A further advantage that the Snap feature brings to Click boards is that the active part of the add-on board can be situated remotely from the development board, connected to the microbus carrier board via a flexible cable. This could be potentially very useful for sensing systems development, for example.