ANT Forum

Dear reader

I need to know what requirements a microcontroller needs in order to be able to communicate with an ANT module.

As far as i know the microcontroller needs to have atleast 6 I/O pins and 1.9V to 3.6V supply voltage range.

Is this correct?

I ask this because in every example i see they only use the MSP430F1232


Thanks for reading

Sam Brands      

Hi,

While it would be easier to use a microcontroller with native SPI or UART hardware, you require a minimum of 3-6 pins to at least bit bash a UART interface.

A UART interface at the very minimum requires the RTS, RXD and TXD pins to be implemented as shown in the "Interfacing with ANT General Purpose Chipsets and Modules" document. I would also strongly recommend implementing the SLEEP pin to support low power ANT states as in the "AN13 Power States" application note, and the RESET pin, although reset can also be done with the SUSPEND pin (good for USB) or just a software reset command (not as easy or reliable).

That voltage requirement is only if you intend to power both the MCU and ANT with the same power supply. In case the supply voltages differ you can use level shifters on the communication lines.

Also you require at least 2kB of flash storage for the program code for very basic functionality and a highly optimized code base, but I would strongly recommend at least 4 kB.

Cheers