Wednesday, March 09, 2016

Porting SIMPL to the MSP430FR4133 Launchpad.

For the last few days I have been using the entry level, MSP430G2553 Launchpad for my code development.

This was fine to begin with for basic experimentation with functions, but ultimately I knew that my proposed application would probably use on of the larger FRAM based parts, with built-in segment LCD controller.

The MSP430FR4133 Launchpad is excellent value at about $16 and it comes with a 6-digit multi-segment display,  similar break-out headers to the entry level Launchpad and the means to monitor the mcu power consumption - using Energy Trace Technology.

My final application is a hand-held, battery powered instrument with LCD - so the MSP430FR4133 target is a good hardware match to the final device.

The MSP430FR4133 has 15360 bytes of FRAM memory for program storage, plus an additional 512 bytes for Information (calibration data, Identity etc). There is also 2Kbytes of RAM.

The extra RAM means that SIMPL can be run easily in the RAMspace without having to use the external RAM - most of the time.   This makes the user interaction with SIMPL a lot easier, and also allows more functionality to be included.


Porting SIMPL to MSP430FR4133

The following steps had to be performed to get SIMPL to run on the '4133 Launchpad.

1.  Increase the RAM allocation to make ful use of the 2Kbytes of RAM
2.  Convert the uart routines to work with USCA0
3.  Convert the spi routines  to work with USCB0
4.  Modify the ADC initialisation code to work with the onchip ADC_10
5.  Correct the interrupt timer routines so that millis() and micros() work correctly
6.  Make use of the LCD by diverting some printout to it


The code is still a work in progress, with 1, 2 & 3 above, working, and a little progress on 6  - but I have posted the latest code here on this Github Gist.

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