Back in May I described a sensor board I was developing as part of a hand held instrumentation project I am engaged in at work.
I am pleased to report that this sensor board is progressing well and we have a new university vacation student working on the firmware - and learning embedded C whilst on the job.
Also new on the MSP430 front, I have received a pair of long awaited, new MSP430FR5994 Launchpad boards, which arrived, whilst I was on holiday.
TI would not ship these to the UK, for whatever reason, - so I had a friend in New York State, purchase them and ship them over.
The MSP430FR5994 is the latest and largest of the FRAM parts with 256Kbytes of FRAM and 8Kbytes of SRAM. The datasheet is here.
The LaunchPad pcb is very similar to others in the series with the programming/debug section included at one end of the pcb, and the target processor, GPIO headers and any application hardware at the other.
As usual, a comprehensive User's Guide is available, detailing the hardware and numerous software examples are also downloadable.
At a first glance the '5994 LaunchPad includes a microSD card, a 0.22F supercapacitor, two LEDs and two switches as the User Application Hardware. Two rows of (2x10) headers allow access to the GPIO signals and power, and accept the expansion shields known as Booster Packs.
Preloaded Firmware.
As with all LaunchPads, the '5994 comes with a couple of preloaded firmware examples that illustrate some of it's key capabilities. For the '5994 these are dataloggers for both the microSD card and for the FRAM. Details are in the User Guide.
In addition the pcb design files have been open-sourced, and are available in EagleCAD format. This is a recent move by TI, which I believe makes them a lot more accessible to the open source and Maker communities. With EagleCAD reference designs available, it makes incorporating the MSP430FR5994 into new hardware a lot easier.
Why FRAM?
This is the first of the MSP430 series to have a big chunk of FRAM, and a reasonable amount of SRAM. TI have produced a Guide to FRAM
FRAM is considerably faster to write than Flash by up to 100 times faster, and the '5994 can write to FRAM at 16 Mbytes per second. 64KB can be written in 4mS. This opens up some interesting possibilities for a self-hosting Forth machine, with very high speed compilation and large dictionary space.
Writing to FRAM is also very low power compared to Flash memory - and can be done whilst the device is running from a supercapacitor or back-up battery.
FRAM does not suffer from wearing out by excessive writes in the same way as Flash - the FRAM is good for 10E15 writes before failure.
Incorporating a large FRAM on the microcontroller means that other system components are no longer needed, saving on RAM and Flash.
The large FRAM can be used for storing data and tables such as display fonts and Icons - which can readily be updated.
A FRAM based instrument.
As I am in the process of creating a new hand held instrument, the low power FRAM will be ideal for datalogging and holding display fonts.
My sensor board based on the MSP430i2041, designed in April, will provide up to four 24 bit ADC channels, communicating over UART or SPI with the '5994 which will be the datalogger and display controller. This pairing of two microcontrollers will provide the best overall solution, and at a very reasonable cost. The MSP430i2041 is $1.99 in 1000 off - which is a fraction of the cost of providing equivalent 24 bit ADCs by other means.
The MSP430FR5994 is currently only available on a Launchpad development board - but will be on general sale later this year.
Here is a great opportunity to get a head start on a very interesting new microcontroller technology.
I am pleased to report that this sensor board is progressing well and we have a new university vacation student working on the firmware - and learning embedded C whilst on the job.
Also new on the MSP430 front, I have received a pair of long awaited, new MSP430FR5994 Launchpad boards, which arrived, whilst I was on holiday.
TI would not ship these to the UK, for whatever reason, - so I had a friend in New York State, purchase them and ship them over.
The MSP430FR5994 is the latest and largest of the FRAM parts with 256Kbytes of FRAM and 8Kbytes of SRAM. The datasheet is here.
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| MSP-EXP430FR5994 LaunchPad |
As usual, a comprehensive User's Guide is available, detailing the hardware and numerous software examples are also downloadable.
At a first glance the '5994 LaunchPad includes a microSD card, a 0.22F supercapacitor, two LEDs and two switches as the User Application Hardware. Two rows of (2x10) headers allow access to the GPIO signals and power, and accept the expansion shields known as Booster Packs.
Preloaded Firmware.
As with all LaunchPads, the '5994 comes with a couple of preloaded firmware examples that illustrate some of it's key capabilities. For the '5994 these are dataloggers for both the microSD card and for the FRAM. Details are in the User Guide.
In addition the pcb design files have been open-sourced, and are available in EagleCAD format. This is a recent move by TI, which I believe makes them a lot more accessible to the open source and Maker communities. With EagleCAD reference designs available, it makes incorporating the MSP430FR5994 into new hardware a lot easier.
Why FRAM?
This is the first of the MSP430 series to have a big chunk of FRAM, and a reasonable amount of SRAM. TI have produced a Guide to FRAM
FRAM is considerably faster to write than Flash by up to 100 times faster, and the '5994 can write to FRAM at 16 Mbytes per second. 64KB can be written in 4mS. This opens up some interesting possibilities for a self-hosting Forth machine, with very high speed compilation and large dictionary space.
Writing to FRAM is also very low power compared to Flash memory - and can be done whilst the device is running from a supercapacitor or back-up battery.
FRAM does not suffer from wearing out by excessive writes in the same way as Flash - the FRAM is good for 10E15 writes before failure.
Incorporating a large FRAM on the microcontroller means that other system components are no longer needed, saving on RAM and Flash.
The large FRAM can be used for storing data and tables such as display fonts and Icons - which can readily be updated.
A FRAM based instrument.
As I am in the process of creating a new hand held instrument, the low power FRAM will be ideal for datalogging and holding display fonts.
My sensor board based on the MSP430i2041, designed in April, will provide up to four 24 bit ADC channels, communicating over UART or SPI with the '5994 which will be the datalogger and display controller. This pairing of two microcontrollers will provide the best overall solution, and at a very reasonable cost. The MSP430i2041 is $1.99 in 1000 off - which is a fraction of the cost of providing equivalent 24 bit ADCs by other means.
The MSP430FR5994 is currently only available on a Launchpad development board - but will be on general sale later this year.
Here is a great opportunity to get a head start on a very interesting new microcontroller technology.