MattTheGeek 99 Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 I got experimental silicon as well. Makes for a better collector item. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
abecedarian 330 Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 I got experimental silicon as well. Makes for a better collector item. Makes for a good reason for me to keep one in the box. Unfortunately, I opened the 2nd box so I could check the silcon revision there. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MattTheGeek 99 Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 Makes for a good reason for me to keep one in the box. Unfortunately, I opened the 2nd box so I could check the silcon revision there. You can try returning the launchpad, since you have a LX4F and not a LM4F. "Should this evaluation board/kit not meet the specifications indicated in the User’s Guide, the board/kit may be returned within 30 days from the date of delivery for a full refund." (See http://www.ti.com/lit/ml/sszz027b/sszz027b.pdf) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
abecedarian 330 Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 Interesting.... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
abecedarian 330 Posted December 2, 2012 Share Posted December 2, 2012 TI states: 7.0 Limited Warranty and Related Remedies/Disclaimers:7.1 This Agreement does not apply to software. The warranty, if any, for Software is covered in the applicable Software License Agreement.7.2 TI warrants that the TI EVK will conform to TI's published specifications for ninety days after the date TI ships such Eval Kit to Buyer. Notwithstanding the foregoing, TI shall not be liable for any defects that are caused by neglect, misuse or mistreatment by an entity other than TI, including improper installation or testing, or for any Eval Kits that have been altered or modified in any way by an entity other than TI. Moreover, TI shall not be liable for any defects that result from Buyer's design, specifications or instructions for such Eval Kits. Testing and other quality control techniques are used to the extent TI deems necessary or as mandated by government requirements. TI does not test all parameters of each Eval Kit. Strictly speaking, they marketed it as a LM4F120H5QR from the get-go. Interestingly enough, there are two of those chips on my boards:USB side is LX4F120H 5QRFIGA3 28ARKOW G4Main side is LX4F120H 5QRFIGA3 28ARKOW G4This is not the part listed in the description and datasheet when the kit went on sale.I really hope TI didn't pork the pooch on this one. Was it a product brought to market with high expectations and the developers didn't bite? The last thing a company should do is dump faulty product on people with legitimate interests because they overproduced engineering samples and the target market didn't buy. This tarnishes the reputation and taints the buyer pool. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BravoV 0 Posted December 4, 2012 Author Share Posted December 4, 2012 @abecedarian , thanks for the update, so even the latest batch still using the A3 chip. Looks like your chip is newer -> 28ARKQW vs 27AROQW like mine, just curious if TI still has tons of this A3 chips at their warehouse. Personally, I won't be bothered for a refund, especially bought both for $5 each, dirt cheap I would say, as MattTheGeek said, probably it will be ended up as collector's item should someday they've fixed it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dellwoodbu 1 Posted December 4, 2012 Share Posted December 4, 2012 The LX silicon marking means that this is a "preview" device as you can see by looking at the part status on the TI website. It is a cosmetic indicator of preview status only. The B0 revision is the one intended to go to active status. I think it is coming some time late Q1. The preview status (thus the 'x') means that TI has not fully completed their stringent qualification process. This is pretty typical for silicon companies, bring a preview device out let people play with it start designing products and then intersect the final production version of the device with the customers final board design. If they waited to give you anything until the part went active your product would be several months behind schedule because you couldn't start prototypes until you got the final revision of the device. The A3 silicon is very good stuff and is more than suitable for the market the LaunchPad serves. If I were building a mass market product I would talk to TI and see about using B0. Building a quad-copter (or anything else) in my spare time i'd use launchpad with the A3 and never think twice. Even building prototypes of my mass market gizmo, i'd have no issue using A3. The post referenced above by sn00p is in regards to a subset of the LM3 device family that originated with Luminary Micro before TI bought them. It indeed had issues but the "scary" ones are isolated to the one or two part families on that process node. The LM4F (or LX4F if you prefer) is a TI part from the start and uses a different process and a different flash. bluehash 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Fred 453 Posted December 4, 2012 Share Posted December 4, 2012 I think dellwoodbu sums it up pretty well. The insight into the processing is interesting, but I'm sure the LX4F A3 has had a fair amount of testing at TI and is quite up to the job for us hobbyists. Think of it as a "release candidate" that passed testing and was used in production. I don't know about you lot but I wasn't planning on building anything safety critical with my LaunchPad. If anyone wants to send theirs back then I'd think TI would probably accept it, but do you really want to? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bluehash 1,581 Posted December 4, 2012 Share Posted December 4, 2012 Are there any outstanding issues with the current LP silicon that may stop us from prototyping. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MattTheGeek 99 Posted December 6, 2012 Share Posted December 6, 2012 Are there any outstanding issues with the current LP silicon that may stop us from prototyping. There isn't any device crippling bugs, but there are some that may be annoying now and perhaps later in the future. But Just out of curiosity, Did anyone get a XMS430G2231 or XMS430G2211 when the MSP430 value line LaunchPad first came out? The only development/eval kit from TI that had experimental silicon was the Chronos. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
roysjosh 0 Posted December 8, 2012 Share Posted December 8, 2012 Unless I'm misreading the pdf linked in the first post, there are only 6 errata fixed from A3 to B0, although some of them do seem fairly important. 2.7 states that random code execution might occur on resets and brown-outs... does this include regular startups? If not, using the Stellaris LaunchPad as a development platform should be fine. It'll be plugged into my laptop and hopefully not subject to unexpected resets and brown-outs. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Bingo600 0 Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 I'm expecting another 2 x 4.95$ boards in December. Will have a look when they arrive. /Bingo Just got the 2 new ones , also LX chips. But i never would have guessed they they were that hancicapped :-( http://e2e.ti.com/support/microcontrollers/stellaris_arm_cortex-m3_microcontroller/f/471/t/233624.aspx TI says timerbased port toggle is a No..No on the current chips Well it was cheap. /Bingo BravoV 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BravoV 0 Posted December 28, 2012 Author Share Posted December 28, 2012 Just got the 2 new ones , also LX chips. But i never would have guessed they they were that hancicapped :-( http://e2e.ti.com/support/microcontrollers/stellaris_arm_cortex-m3_microcontroller/f/471/t/233624.aspx TI says timerbased port toggle is a No..No on the current chips Well it was cheap. /Bingo Wow .. thanks Bingo for the finding ! Sceen shot of the current datasheet (rev 29 Aug 2012) at page 664 on the TCACT subject, for reference just in case someone stumbled on it in the future. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pny 0 Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 I got my Stellaris Launchpads today (2013-01-02) and they are also revision A3. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
nemetila 12 Posted January 15, 2013 Share Posted January 15, 2013 I got my Launchpad in December 2012. Both the ICDI and the Main units are revision A3. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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