Observe ADC Functionality and Current Consumption in Data Visualizer

Open the Data Visualizer by clicking the Data Visualizer tab to observe the ADC functionality and power consumption, as shown in the figure below.
Figure 1. ADC Data Print to USART Terminal and Power Analysis

As shown in terminal 0 in Figure 1, the ADC result is printed in the same manner as in previous assignment. When rotating the potmeter knob, the print ADC result changes in the same manner. The functionality of this assignment remains the same as the previous one.

When looking at the current consumption in the power analysis window, the average current is constant 1.32 μA when rotating potmeter knob. In comparison, the average current consumption is about 4.5 μA in the previous assignment. There are two factors which contribute to this current consumption reduction:

This is a significant reduction of the average current from 3.7 μA to 109 μA in the previous assignment to 1.3 μA in this assignment. The high peak glitches are about 690 μA, the same level as in the previous assignment. It refers to the current consumed for the ADC conversion and USART transmission.

Result: Average current consumption has been reduced significantly from 4.5 μA in the previous assignment to 1.32 μA by disabling the digital input buffer on all I/O pins and by configuring the USART TX pin as input during the no data transmission period.