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More Flash needed on DRV8821EVM Dual Stepper Driver - Pin compatable MSP430F1612

I've been working a project using DRV8821EVM (Dual Stepper Driver) as a test bed for some time now. Very successful to this point.

BUT, I now need more program (memory) flash than the MSP430F1612 provides. I am OK with changing the part out on the EVM but can not identify a pin for pin replacement with double or half-again the flash space.

One MSP found has additional 5K but changing part for that little increase is not justified.

(A new EVM with larger flash and Dual Stepper Drive would be good but porting firmware may be an issue.)

Is there another pin compatible MSP with significantly more flash?

Thanks,
LDT

  • You are already using the part within that family/feature set with the maximum amount of Flash. You will probably not find a part with exact same pinout that gives you the memory you need.

    You might want to look at some of the newer parts. F5xx family has parts with more memory. It would depend on what other peripherals you need.

    You could also look at F2618 device variant. That has loads of Flash.

    Code porting shouldn't be too bad within MSP430. There are some differences between families (clocking etc) but it can be done. For example I have a single code base for a control head that targets both 2618 and 5438A devices.

  • Simple thing: the 1x family only has 64k address range. So 64k is the maximum, including all hardware registers and modules, ram and flash.

    The different, pin compatible variants of the MSP430F16x/16xx only vary the amount of flash and ram. The 1611 having most ram (10k) and the 169 having most flash (60k).

    If you really need more than 60 flash, all you can do is a re-design with using a 2x family or 5x family device. Those will have up to 512k flash and up to 64k ram, but besides the different pinout, you’ll also have to rewrite much of the code, as clock system and UARTs are quite different (the other parts differ a bit too, but are mostly backwards compatible with additional features).

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