Micron Technical Notes Aid Board Bring-Up

You might not expect more than a datasheet from a memory company, but Micron has many useful technical notes for both hardware and software development.  Many are especially helpful for bringing up new hardware.    Below are some examples:

Software development

• Initialization Sequence for DDR SDRAM
• NAND Flash Performance Increase
• Wear-Leveling Techniques in NAND Flash Devices
• Enabling a Flash Memory Device into the Linux MTD
• Bad Block Management in NAND Flash Memory

Hardware design

• Calculating DDR Memory System Power
• Bypass Capacitor Selection for High-Speed Designs

General/Introductory

• NAND Flash 101 - An Introduction to NAND Flash and How to Design It In to Your Next Product
• Understanding Signal Integrity
• Evaluating Tools that Measure Storage Device Performance

There are many more notes for specific technologies and device families.

• Booting from Embedded MMC
• Boot-from-NAND Using Micron®  MT29F1G08ABB NAND Flash with the Texas Instruments™ (TI) OMAP2420 Processor

Micron also has software device drivers, example code, and Linux patches to use with its memory.

• BeagleBoard SPI NAND MTD for Linux 2.6.33
• NAND Hamming Code Software

Blackfin EZ-KIT Lite Sale

Avnet is advertising the Blackfin BF506F EZ-KIT Lite for over half off the normal price at $99US.  There is currently a problem with the website that prevented me from ordering but hopefully that will be fixed soon.

Please note this offer is valid in North America only. Offer valid until January 31, 2012, or while supplies last.

On the Analog Devices website, you can find a complete list of features for the BF506F EZ-KIT Lite. You can read more about the BF506F in the latest issues of Tech Review from Avnet.  Look for the article "Blackfin BF506F: Bringing Higher Levels of Performance to Industrial Applications" in the November/December 2011 issue. 

How to compile the STMicro UM0424 USB Stack with IAR 6.3

Steps to compile the STMicro UM0424 USB Stack with the newer IAR compiler versions.  Example for IAR 6.3 and  STM3210B-EVAL and Custom_HID project.

For background on this problem see the technical notes from IAR and ST:

IAR Technical Note 75890: CMSIS build problems with IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM 6.20

ST Technical Note TN0830: How to use EWARM 6.2x with projects built with EWARM 6.1 and previous versions

The technical notes explain the problem and the general solution, but here is a specific example that might help, especially if you are using the USB stack.

1. Unzip um0424.zip and open the workspace in the following path:
STM32_USB-FS-Device_Lib_V3.3.0\Project\Custom_HID\EWARM

2. Select the target board (STM3210B-EVAL) in the workspace dropdown.

3. Bring up the project options with ALT-F7 or from the menu under Project - Options.
4. Under General Options, select the tab Library Configuration, under CMSIS, check USE CMSIS.

5. Select Catagory C/C++ Compiler, under tab Preprocessor, go to Additional include directories.  Remove the two CMSIS dirs.

The following directories are left:

$PROJ_DIR$\..\inc
$PROJ_DIR$\..\..\..\Libraries\STM32_USB-FS-Device_Driver\inc
$PROJ_DIR$\..\..\..\Libraries\STM32F10x_StdPeriph_Driver\inc
$PROJ_DIR$\..\..\..\Utilities\STM32_EVAL
$PROJ_DIR$\..\..\..\Utilities\STM32_EVAL\Common
$PROJ_DIR$\..\..\..\Utilities\STM32_EVAL\STM3210B_EVAL

Click OK to save the changes to project options.

6.  Copy three files from the unused CMSIS directory to your project directories.
A.  Copy the following two files
  system_stm32f10x.h
  stm32f10x.h
from this directory:
  STM32_USB-FS-Device_Lib_V3.3.0\Libraries\CMSIS\CM3\DeviceSupport\ST\STM32F10x
to this one:
  STM32_USB-FS-Device_Lib_V3.3.0\Project\Custom_HID\inc

B.  Copy the following file
  system_stm32f10x.c
from this directory:
  STM32_USB-FS-Device_Lib_V3.3.0\Libraries\CMSIS\CM3\DeviceSupport\ST\STM32F10x
to this one:
  STM32_USB-FS-Device_Lib_V3.3.0\Project\Custom_HID\src

7. Add system_stm32f10x.c in src to the User folder in the workspace.

8. Remove the CMSIS directory from your project.

9. Rebuid All

TI Stellaris Kits On Sale

Texas Instruments has joined in on the end-of-the year sale blitz with three popular Stellaris kits.  Follow the preceding link or see the image below for coupon codes to use at the TI eStore.

*Codes valid through December 31, 2011 or while supplies last at TI's eStore *One of each tool per customer

CadSoft Eagle 6 Release

Cadsoft has released Eagle 6 and their sluggish site may indicate it's increasing popularity.  Eagle has been popular for it's low cost and free versions, especially with DIY electronics enthusiasts and students.  You can even get a skill badge with the Eagle Logo from Adafruit.

Eagle's low cost and popularity with DIYers may be helping it gain support in industry.  For example, Texas Instruments provides a library of symbols and footprints for the MSP430 for use with Eagle.  TI also provides schematics and layout for its $4.30US MSP430 LaunchPad development board in Eagle format.

LaunchPad Schematic and PCB Trace (Created using Eagle) | Download Now

Shown above is the LaunchPad with a transciever daughterboard from the $19 RF BoosterPack and a blurb from TI about eagle support.  If you are interested in MSP430 development on other boards than the LaunchPad, tideals.com is featuring a USB Debugger/board bundle.

Microchip Development Tool Sale

Microchip is having its annual end of year sale on select development tools.  You can save on boards from Microchip and third party tools sold at microchipDIRECT until January 5, 2012.  Included in the sale are the ICD3 in circuit debugger  for $152 US and the new accessory development starter kit for android for $65.

Google honors early electronics engineer Robert Noyce with today's doodle. Noyce was part of a group of researchers who left Shockley Semiconductor in 1957 to form Fairchild Semiconductor.  Known as the traitorous eight, these men are considered the real fathers of Silicon Valley.

Noyce, born in Iowa in 1927, received a PhD from MIT in 1953 in Physics, and after working at Schockley and starting Fairchild, went on to found Intel Corporation with Gordon Moore.  Here is a brief bio of Noyce from pbs.org, and another interesting one at history-computer.com

Robert Noyce

Breadboard Oscilloscopes

Gabotronics, a developer of tools for electronics hobbyists, has released a new larger size oscilloscope display that can be mounted on a solderless breadboard.

The XMEGA Minilab is not just a mixed signal oscilloscope - it also has a meter mode, spectrum analyzer and arbitrary waveform generator with frequency sweep.  It has a micro USB connection but the interface is still under development.   The logic analyzer has 8 digital inputs and can decode UART, I2C and SPI.  The scope has 2 analog inputs with 200kHz bandwidth and 2MS/s maximum sample rate.  You can buy it direct for $69 US.  Gabotronics also sells the smaller XMEGA Protolab with similar features for $49.

UPDATE: Gabotronics has developed a few portable oscilloscopes and is developing an oscilloscope watch.

Variscite Adds High Performance ARM Module

Variscite offers system-on-modules, single board computers and evaluation kits with TI ARM processors.  They have recently released the VAR-SOM-4460 for high performance multimedia, advanced graphics and video applications.  It features the TI OMAP4460 with two ARM Cortex-A9 cores running at 1.5GHz.

If you don't need all that power and are looking for a low cost module, Variscite also offers the VAR-SOM-AM35  starting at $49 with a TI 600MHz Cortex A8.  It features a CAN bus controller and targets industrial and automotive applications.  It supports Android, Linux, Windows Embedded CE and Windows Embedded Compact 7.

Final Week of STMicroelectronics Primer Contest

The STMicroelectronics STM32 OpenWorld Application Design Contest is in the final week for submissions. Even if you weren't awarded free tools in Phase 1 of the contest you can enter your EvoPrimer design by December 14, 2011.  Judges will award prizes to 11 entrants of up to $5,000 US.