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@@Adnan

If you want built-in LCD, you only have two choices: FR4133 and FR6989. Your 64KB limit narrows things down to FR6989.

FR4133 has 16 KB FRAM which makes it unsuitable for my application. However FR6989 has good features but the size of RAM is large which means more power to dissipate. Do you agree with me?

 

Based on my experience, FR5969 provides better performance stability over F5529. I think that is because FR5969 is USA made while F5529 is China made. Do anyone has an idea about FR6989?

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FR4133 has 16 KB FRAM which makes it unsuitable for my application. However FR6989 has good features but the size of RAM is large which means more power to dissipate. Do you agree with me?

 

Based on my experience, FR5969 provides better performance stability over F5529. I think that is because FR5969 is USA made while F5529 is China made. Do anyone has an idea about FR6989?

I don't know where your last line came from, but I doubt there's any difference in where the chips are made... (IIRC all MSP430's are made in the USA, in Dallas near TI's headquarters)

 

What do you mean by "performance stability"?

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I don't know where your last line came from, but I doubt there's any difference in where the chips are made... (IIRC all MSP430's are made in the USA, in Dallas near TI's headquarters)

 

What do you mean by "performance stability"?

First of all, If you have a box of F5529LP you can see made in China.

 

When I use both kits for the same application. After I unplug the kit from USB and connect it back to the port, FR5969 start the operation normally while F5529 needs downloading the software again. Why? That happens many times.

 

Can you give a reason why there is a margin in prices of FR5969 ($24) and FR6989 ($18)?

 FR6989 has Built in LCD and has higer FRAM (128KB instead of 64KB in FR5969).

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First of all, If you have a box of F5529LP you can see made in China.

 

When I use both kits for the same application. After I unplug the kit from USB and connect it back to the port, FR5969 start the operation normally while F5529 needs downloading the software again. Why? That happens many times.

 

Can you give a reason why there is a margin in prices of FR5969 ($24) and FR6989 ($18)?

 FR6989 has Built in LCD and has higer FRAM (128KB instead of 64KB in FR5969).

Yeah the LP's are probably all made in China, just the chips are made in TX (and packaged in Mexico if I'm not mistaken).

 

For software, do you mean the F5529LP needs a new firmware update on its FET?  Or do you mean the chip itself is missing the code you uploaded?  The latter would be very odd (and probably just a bad chip on your board).  I've never seen that happen with any of mine.

 

As for TI's prices .... I see $16 for the FR5969 and $18 for the FR6989, and what I will say is TI's pricing for their launchpads makes no sense to me, probably it's priced for promotional or educational use which is why the prices often seem questionable when considering the amount of components onboard.  All of those components are likely dirt cheap for TI anyhow.

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Yeah the LP's are probably all made in China, just the chips are made in TX (and packaged in Mexico if I'm not mistaken).

 

For software, do you mean the F5529LP needs a new firmware update on its FET?  Or do you mean the chip itself is missing the code you uploaded?  The latter would be very odd (and probably just a bad chip on your board).  I've never seen that happen with any of mine.

 

As for TI's prices .... I see $16 for the FR5969 and $18 for the FR6989, and what I will say is TI's pricing for their launchpads makes no sense to me, probably it's priced for promotional or educational use which is why the prices often seem questionable when considering the amount of components onboard.  All of those components are likely dirt cheap for TI anyhow.

 

F5529 sometimes doesn't run the software when it's connected to CC1120 unless I upload the software again. While FR5969 works properly.

 

Some LPs are made in China and others in USA. I can show you the proof if you still hesitated about that.

 

I bought FR5969 before six months and have no idea about the new price.

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F5529 sometimes doesn't run the software when it's connected to CC1120 unless I upload the software again. While FR5969 works properly.

 

Some LPs are made in China and others in USA. I can show you the proof if you still hesitated about that.

 

I bought FR5969 before six months and have no idea about the new price.

I'll take your word for it ;)

 

I like the FR5969 better overall anyway.  F5529 has plenty of cool stuff to talk about but FRAM is neat.  I have a lightning sensor project that uses the FRAM as its data storage device (and that whole concept should work well for WSN nodes when reliable communication links aren't guaranteed but the data should be reported).

 

The thing I hate about the FR6989 is that since its 128KB FRAM lives mostly in the upper address space (requiring 20-bit addressing mode), the old msp430-gcc that ships with Energia doesn't support it, whereas the new msp430-elf-gcc that ships with CCS has had lots of issues to work out (though I haven't tried the very latest version, maybe it's stable now).  Great that it's there, just sucks that the software support requires finagling with linker scripts 'n stuff.  Give me a FRAM MSP432 already.

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I'll take your word for it ;)

 

I like the FR5969 better overall anyway.  F5529 has plenty of cool stuff to talk about but FRAM is neat.  I have a lightning sensor project that uses the FRAM as its data storage device (and that whole concept should work well for WSN nodes when reliable communication links aren't guaranteed but the data should be reported).

 

The thing I hate about the FR6989 is that since its 128KB FRAM lives mostly in the upper address space (requiring 20-bit addressing mode), the old msp430-gcc that ships with Energia doesn't support it, whereas the new msp430-elf-gcc that ships with CCS has had lots of issues to work out (though I haven't tried the very latest version, maybe it's stable now).  Great that it's there, just sucks that the software support requires finagling with linker scripts 'n stuff.  Give me a FRAM MSP432 already.

 FR5969 is good choice and sufficient for my work. But I an LCD  to display some parameters during network operation.

 

As far as I know, I have only one choice FR6989 although the FRAM size is large and may consume more power.

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A FRAM backed MSP432... or even TM4C would be sweet!

 

 

I've never had an issue with an F5529LP "forgetting" its program. I have had issues where connecting it to the computer and flipping back and forth between CCS and Energia has required the FET section firmware be "updated" though, and have had this occur with other LP's too.

 

FRAM is not going to consume any more power than FLASH; I suspect it'll consume less since it doesn't require the higher voltages FLASH needs to erase.

 

All the FR parts, IIRC, have 2KB SRAM which can be set to be inactive in LPM3/4 so not consume any power in those modes, but wakeups might take a little longer.

 

Energia supports the 6989, but I'm not sure how that goes considering the extended addressing required by the chip. Compiling a simple sketch shows 130,048 byte maximum on Energia 17 so maybe it's not an issue?

 

 

 

Anyhow, an LCD is sort of a non-issue for me. LCD character displays can be had on eBay for fairly cheap so could be an expansion of sorts if that's acceptable. e-paper displays are an option as well. I actually like the idea of the display being external to the LP since it opens up enclosure options due to not being on the LP itself, in a fixed location.

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A FRAM backed MSP432... or even TM4C would be sweet!

 

 

I've never had an issue with an F5529LP "forgetting" its program. I have had issues where connecting it to the computer and flipping back and forth between CCS and Energia has required the FET section firmware be "updated" though, and have had this occur with other LP's too.

 

FRAM is not going to consume any more power than FLASH; I suspect it'll consume less since it doesn't require the higher voltages FLASH needs to erase.

 

All the FR parts, IIRC, have 2KB SRAM which can be set to be inactive in LPM3/4 so not consume any power in those modes, but wakeups might take a little longer.

 

Energia supports the 6989, but I'm not sure how that goes considering the extended addressing required by the chip. Compiling a simple sketch shows 130,048 byte maximum on Energia 17 so maybe it's not an issue?

 

 

 

Anyhow, an LCD is sort of a non-issue for me. LCD character displays can be had on eBay for fairly cheap so could be an expansion of sorts if that's acceptable. e-paper displays are an option as well. I actually like the idea of the display being external to the LP since it opens up enclosure options due to not being on the LP itself, in a fixed location.

The "byte maximum" in Energia is BS and driven by the values inside boards.txt IIRC.  I haven't looked at Energia's FR6989 support internals yet though.

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On @@abecedarian 's note about LCDs, one interesting option would be to have the LCD interface a pluggable module that you attach only when you need it... and have the board designed to accept such "hot plugged" hardware.  I'm not 100% certain how the hot plug interface should work but I do know there are special "bus transceiver" ICs that can make this seamless/less prone to screw with the board's operation.

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On @@abecedarian 's note about LCDs, one interesting option would be to have the LCD interface a pluggable module that you attach only when you need it... and have the board designed to accept such "hot plugged" hardware.  I'm not 100% certain how the hot plug interface should work but I do know there are special "bus transceiver" ICs that can make this seamless/less prone to screw with the board's operation.

Physically, I'd think that 'device present' signal would be the last to make contact when plugging it in and the first to break contact when removing it.

 

All the 'data' pins would be held tri-state or similar so glitching on them wouldn't affect the MCU, but once the 'device present' signal is detected, everything else would fall into place. Perhaps, if the device / display were using SPI or IIC, something like a TXB/TXS level shifter could run interference, set with its output enable pin to disable output until the MCU explicitly enables it.

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F5529 doesn't support EnergyTrace so I can't optimize the performance of the sensor node. That is one of the reason why I want to migrate to FR6989. Second reason is that in general compact design is more reliable i.e. LCD is  part of LP board and I guess it may consume less power.

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