STM32 Discovery board, NETMF port

godefroi · October 13, 2011, 4:55pm

Discuss.

Architect · October 13, 2011, 5:05pm

I have manged to compile and load discovery with couple of examples that it comes with. Going through PK documentation.

First question: Do we need tinybooter or use built in boot loader.

godefroi · October 13, 2011, 5:11pm

The existing port supports two boards, one of which uses the built-in bootloader.

If we don’t use tinybooter, we lose MFDeploy support, correct? Also, the 4.2 NETMF has in-field update built in, and we’d probably lose support for that as well?

In the end, given how inexpensive these things are even with lots of flash, I think tinybooter is worth the space.

Architect · October 13, 2011, 5:14pm

I agree, makes sense.

godefroi · October 13, 2011, 5:20pm

The M4 can be had for as little as $17 in ones with 1MB of flash. The M3 is as low as $11.44 in ones with 512KB of flash. This compared to the $13.44 of the LPC2378 (USBizi 100).

My “FEZ Ant” style design with the M3 on it could be built for under $20 per board in threes.

Architect · October 13, 2011, 5:23pm

My goal is to learn pk, tool set, etc. I am not worried about the price for now, since I will only use eval kit that we already have.

Pablo · October 13, 2011, 5:37pm

I’m trying to get one of these but cannot find any distributor that ships over USPS to my country (Argentina). Everyone I found use FeDeX or UPS that cost not less than u$s of shipping which I cannot pay. 40 bucks of shippment for a 14 thing doesnt make sense.

Do you know of any ?

I’m also interested in using the pk and get familiar with .NETMF internals.

Architect · October 13, 2011, 5:52pm

Sorry I don’t know.

Pablo · October 13, 2011, 6:17pm

Tomorrow I’ll try on Farnell. Once I get it I could help with the NETMF port.

By the way what compiler are you guys using to build and debug on discovery ?

Architect · October 13, 2011, 6:31pm

i used mdk

GMod_Errol · October 14, 2011, 3:58am

What draws me to the STM32 is this:
[ulist]They have a 64 pin package, 10mmx10mm. Many application don’t need 80 io pins. Look at the Panda1, and my HEX board.
More ram.
Faster
USB2 High Speed, IE full 480Mb/s USB.
At 90MHz it uses half the current of the LPC[/ulist]

EriSan500_Eric · October 14, 2011, 4:57am

Looks like the STM32L1 is a good candidate for low power remote sensors.
But I’m not familiar in this (STM32) area. So here are some questions:

[ulist]
If I understood right, it’s possible to run the NetMF on it, right?
They do have SPI?
How are they programmed? (USB/Serial)
What is the minimum Flash/Ram size for the MF?
Is there a price known for these chips?[/ulist]

My ultimate goal is to have a base sensor node at the lowest possible cost. Then add sensors as needed (temp/hum/pir/light/…)

GMod_Errol · October 14, 2011, 6:23am

I don’t know what the limit is now, but the USBizi with 512K flash and 96K ram used to be the minimum…

I highly doubt that you will get the MF into 128K flash and 16K ram…

Gus_Issa · October 14, 2011, 6:40am

16K ram!!! I can tell you now, do not try!

EriSan500_Eric · October 14, 2011, 7:03am

What are the minimum memory requirements to put NetMF on a microprocessor?

Just looking for opportunities here.

Gus_Issa · October 14, 2011, 7:06am

minimum with RDVS ($$$$$ compiler) = USBizi = 512K flash and about 100K RAM

minimum with GCC? You can somewhat guess.

You can strip it down to 128K but then it is really useless!

Architect · October 14, 2011, 1:32pm

Reading “The Definitive Guide To The ARM Cortes-M3” Second Edition by Joseph Yiu. Good book.

By the way if you have Discover credit card with cache back bonus,you can link it with Amazon and spend cache back money for your purchases 1 to 1 with no limit.

GMod_Errol · October 15, 2011, 7:52am

BTW, if anybody from South Africa is interested, the STM32F4DISCOVERY kit is around R130(excuding vat)(about $16) from Arrow Altech.

JDAL_Systems · October 16, 2011, 12:24pm

Just received my free Discovery kit yesterday. This looks like a great part. 1 MB Flash, 192 KB RAM,

Now looking more into their parts they have this animal. Man, i can only imagine .netmf on a dual core Arm9

[url]STM32 Microcontrollers (MCUs) - STMicroelectronics

CPU subsystem:
    2x ARM Cortex A9 cores, up to 600 MHz supporting both symmetric (SMP) and asymmetric (AMP) multiprocessing
    32+32 KB L1 instructions/data cache per core with parity check
    Shared 512 KB L2 cache (ECC protected) with parity check
    Accelerator coherence port (ACP)
Bus: 64-bit multilayer network-on-chip
Memories:
    32 KB BootROM
    32 KB + 4 KB internal SRAM
    Multiport controller for external DDR2-800/ DDR3-1066 with 16-/32-bit datapath, up to 1 GB addressable with ECC option for SEC/DED
    Controller (FSMC) for external NAND Flash, parallel NOR Flash and asynchronous SRAM
    Controller (SMI) for ext. serial NOR Flash
Connectivity:
    1x Giga/Fast Ethernet ports (for external GMII/RGMII/MII/RMII PHY)
    1x PCIe 2.0 RC/EP link (embedded PHY)
    1x SATA gen-2 host port(alternative to PCIe)
    2x USB 2.0 host ports (embedded PHYs)
    1x USB2.0 OTG port with integrated PHY
    2x UARTs (up to 5 Mbaud), IrDA compliant
    1x SSP port (SPI and other protocols), master/slave, up to 41 Mbps, 4xCS
    2x I2C ports, master/slave
    Memory card interface (MCIF)
    Touchscreen I/F (4-wire resistive)
    6 x 6 keyboard controller
    2x consumer electronic control (CEC) ports
Audio: up to 7.1 multichannel surround : 2x I2S ports (8x input channels + 8x output channels), SPDIF I/O
Video:
    TFT LCD controller, up to 1920 x 1200 (60 Hz), 24 bpp
    High-performance MALI200 2D/3D (GPU), up to 1080p, OpenGL ES 2.0, OpenVG 2.0
    HD video decoder, up to 1080p: H263, H264, MPEG2, MPEG4, VC1, Sorenson Spark, AVS, VPS 6-7-8, RealVideo, DivX, JPEG (67 Mpixels)
    HD video encoder, up to 1080p: H264, JPEG (67 Mpixels)
    Digital video input port, with alternate configuration for 4x camera interfaces
Security: C3 cryptographic accelerator
13x timers and 1x real-time clock
Miscellaneous functions:
    2x high-performance 8-channel DMAC
    10 bit ADC, up to 1 MSPS, 8 inputs with autoscan capability
    4x PWM generators
    Programmable bidirectional GPIO signals with interrupt capability
    510+209 one-time programmable bits
    Embedded sensor for junction temperature monitoring (THSENS)
    JTAG-PTM (debugging and test interface)
Power saving features:
    Power islands for leakage reduction
    IPs clock gating for dynamic reduction
    Dynamic frequency scaling

godefroi · October 16, 2011, 8:19pm

That’s not a microcontroller. Cortex-M is "M"icrocontroller while, Cortex-A is "A"pplications processor, i.e. the sort of thing you’d find in a single board computer, tablet, cell phone, etc.