Silicon Labs BGM220 Explorer Kit

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The BGM220 Explorer Kit from Silicon Labs is an ultra-low cost, small form factor development and evaluation platform for the BGM220P Bluetooth® Module. The kit includes a mikroBUS™ socket and Qwiic connector, allowing users to add features to the kit with a large selection of off-the-shelf boards.

Programming the BGM220 Explorer Kit is easily done using a USB Micro-B cable and the on-board J-Link debugger. A USB virtual COM port provides a serial connection to the target application, and the Packet Trace Interface (PTI) offers invaluable debug information about transmitted and received packets in wireless links. The BGM220 Explorer Kit is supported in Simplicity Studio™ and a Board Support Package (BSP) is provided to give application developers a flying start.

Connecting external hardware to the BGM220 Explorer Kit can be done using the 20 breakout pads which present peripherals from the BGM220P Wireless Gecko such as I2C, SPI, UART and GPIOs. The mikroBUS socket allows inserting mikroBUS add-on boards which interface with the BGM220P through SPI, UART or I2C. The Qwiic connector can be used to connect hardware from the Qwiic Connect System through I2C.

  • Small Form Factor Kit
    • EXP compatible breakouts
  • Target device
    • BGM220PC22HNA
      • Secure Bluetooth 5.2 module
      • 76.8 MHz, ARM Cortex-M33 with 512 kB of flash and 32 kB RAM
      • Bluetooth 5.2 Radio with supported for direction finding and LE coded PHY 38.4 MHz HFXO crystal
    • 32.768 kHz LFXO crystal
    • 2.4 GHz matching network and a chip antenna
  • On-board Board controller
    • J-Link debugger
      • SWD physical layer
    • Packet trace over UART/async protocol
    • Virtual COM with hardware flow control
  • USB Micro-B connector for debug connection
  • User interface features
    • 1x button (with EM2 wake-up)
    • 1x LED
  • Mini Simplicity Debug Connector (SLSDA001A compatible) with access to
    • AEM
    • PTI
    • VCOM
    • SWD
  • Third-party add-on connectors
    • mikroBus socket
    • Qwiic connector

Silicon Labs BGM220 Explorer Kit Product Help and Resources

Core Skill: Programming

If a board needs code or communicates somehow, you're going to need to know how to program or interface with it. The programming skill is all about communication and code.

3 Programming

Skill Level: Competent - The toolchain for programming is a bit more complex and will examples may not be explicitly provided for you. You will be required to have a fundamental knowledge of programming and be required to provide your own code. You may need to modify existing libraries or code to work with your specific hardware. Sensor and hardware interfaces will be SPI or I2C.
See all skill levels


Core Skill: Electrical Prototyping

If it requires power, you need to know how much, what all the pins do, and how to hook it up. You may need to reference datasheets, schematics, and know the ins and outs of electronics.

2 Electrical Prototyping

Skill Level: Rookie - You may be required to know a bit more about the component, such as orientation, or how to hook it up, in addition to power requirements. You will need to understand polarized components.
See all skill levels


Comments

Looking for answers to technical questions?

We welcome your comments and suggestions below. However, if you are looking for solutions to technical questions please see our Technical Assistance page.

  • Member #45151 / about 4 years ago * / 1

    I wonder does this module have direction-finding capability (see https://www.silabs.com/documents/public/data-sheets/bgm220p-datasheet.pdf). Depends on which version of the BGM220P and possibly on antenna configuration. The datasheet does mention BGM220PC22HNA and that seems to be the model which supports direction-finding.

    • Peter-P / about 4 years ago / 1

      It says in the Features that it does support direction finding. Also, they mention it in their promo video of the product on YouTube. Link to video

      • Member #1640502 / about 4 years ago / 1

        You can use the kit as a tag that gets picked up by a locator to determine the location. If you install Simplicity Studio 5 and the latest Bluetooth SDK 3.1 you will see an example project that can be built for this kit "Bluetooth - SoC AoA Asset Tag".

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BGM220 Explorer Kit

I received the BGM220 Explorer Kit a couple of weeks ago, it looks like it's going to be a bigger effort to get it working than I expected.

I purchased the 'Temp & Hum 14' (I2C) click board from mikroE, I want to use it with the BGM220 board.

I guess the idea is to use mikroSDK 2.0 to generate the I2C code for the for the click board, then port this 'C' code to the Silicon Labs code for the BGM220.

But, the Silicon Labs documentation states the following about porting mikroSDK:

NOTE * At this time, there is no official mikroSDK port for Silicon Labs devices.

  • This guide is intended to introduce the user to the Silicon Labs' APIs and show how to use these APIs instead of the mikroSDK. The guide is not intended to instruct the user on how to port the mikroSDK to the BGM220 or other Silicon Labs devices.

So, what is one to do now?