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[FAQ] MSP432WARE: Clarification on product palette

Max Beikirch
Prodigy 10 points
Part Number: MSP432WARE
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: CC2640, CC3100, MSP432E401Y

Hello,

I have some difficulties to fully understand which product fits my use case. As an software engineer, I am new to electrical engineering, so please excuse obvious questions.

At my company we are developing a digital sensor using an MSP430 based design. The circuit board used is relatively small, smaller than what I found on the Internet so far - so maybe we are using a custom design and only using the MSP430 to drive it. The circuit board is connected to analog sensors and, using the firmware on the MSP, sends the analog sensors' readings over USB (as a serial port). 4 pins are soldered to that USB cable, so I suspect that I will only ever have 4 ports for communication.

There is a software on the PC to receive and store serial port data.

We are now trying to extend this to ethernet, wifi, bluetooth and nfc, with bluetooth being the most important technology. Each design should be on its own chip/solution.

The following things are unclear to me:

1) For the current design, we are soldering a USB cable to some of the pins and a cable with UART ports to other pins. Would that also be necessary for the device here : http://www.ti.com/product/MSP432E401Y/ 

description, I thought that MSPs like the MSP432P401V supported Wifi and Bluetooth out of the box. Do they? If not, what is the benefit in buying a MSP432 instead of the MSP430?

3) What exactly is a launchpad? As far as I understood, it makes life easier, in that I don't have to solder USB and UART to the board myself and it also exposes some pins.

4) The current solution is programmed using IAR studio. Can I use IAR studio to program launchpad-MSPs, too?

5) Also, currently the MSP430 USB API is used for the project. Are there also such APIs for Wifi, Bluetooth or Ethernet? If so, do those only exist for CC2640/CC3100?

6) The current product has half the size of a pen. So while it might be ok to use a launchpad and the CC2640/CC3100 to test if sending works, the actual product must be small. I also found some bluetooth modules like that one: https://www.reichelt.de/bluetooth-modul-fuer-nibobee-nibo-bee-blue-p129272.html?&trstct=pos_0 will not work on this or similar modules? Are there any bluetooth modules other than the CC2640/CC3100 that have been tested with the MSP? Are there APIs that I can use to control the hardware? How much time would it take to control those modules without an API, based on your experience?

7) On a higher level, are there APIs for the communication stacks of bluetooth, wifi or ethernet? For USB, no such protocol was needed, but wifi/ethernet need TCP/IP and bluetooth surely also has a protocol.

Summing up, I am overwhelmed with information here and I need a bit of guidance. My goal is: I want to send arbitrary data (arbitrary for the beginning, later it should be sensor data) via wifi, bluetooth or ethernet, the later product must be small (but might be large for testing) and if the testing system (launchpad...?) differs from the product, I want as much code as possible shared between them. Some general words of advice to clear up my confusion are well appreciated!

Best regards,
Max

MSP432E401Y

  • 0
    TI__Mastermind 22560 points

    Hello Max,

    Thanks for contacting us for help with deciding which device to use!

    I will try my best to answer you questions.

    Max Beikirch said:
    We are now trying to extend this to ethernet, wifi, bluetooth and nfc, with bluetooth being the most important technology. Each design should be on its own chip/solution.

    The SimpleLink MCU Platform (www.ti.com/simplelink) provides portable SDKs for each of the BLE (CC26xx), Wi-Fi (CC32xx) and Ethernet (MSP432E4) devices. So if you develop application on one of the SDK (example on SimpleLink CC2640R2 SDK), you should be able to move it to another SDK fairly quickly as long as the Hardware supports those features.

    Max Beikirch said:
    1) For the current design, we are soldering a USB cable to some of the pins and a cable with UART ports to other pins. Would that also be necessary for the device here : http://www.ti.com/product/MSP432E401Y/ 

    I don't understand why you are connecting USB cable to UART pins. The MSP432E4 devices come with USB peripheral, so if you want to use USB Host, Device or OTG, then the support exists on these device.

    Max Beikirch said:
    description, I thought that MSPs like the MSP432P401V supported Wifi and Bluetooth out of the box. Do they?

    MSP432P4 devices are part of the SimpleLink MCU platform. The SimpleLink MSP432P4 SDK can be extended to support the Wireless devices (like Wi-Fi and BLE) using SimpleLink SDK Plugins.

    Max Beikirch said:
    3) What exactly is a launchpad? As far as I understood, it makes life easier, in that I don't have to solder USB and UART to the board myself and it also exposes some pins.

    LaunchPad is an EVM or Development kit that enables customers to start developing Software/Firmware application without waiting for the board designed to be completed. It also comes with boosterpack headers that allow to extend the hardware capabilities of the Launchpad. For example BLE capability can be added to  MSP432P401V LaunchPad by conencting the CC2640R2 to the Boosterpack headers on the Launchpad.

    Max Beikirch said:
    4) The current solution is programmed using IAR studio. Can I use IAR studio to program launchpad-MSPs, too?

    IAR is supported by all SimpleLink SDKs including the SimpleLink MSP432P4 SDK.

    Max Beikirch said:
    5) Also, currently the MSP430 USB API is used for the project. Are there also such APIs for Wifi, Bluetooth or Ethernet? If so, do those only exist for CC2640/CC3100?

    Are you asking if APIs are available for accessing Wi-Fi, BLE or Ethernet? If yes, then there are APIs available.

    Please refer the following Documentation for each SDK for the available software Stacks:

    Max Beikirch said:
    Summing up, I am overwhelmed with information here and I need a bit of guidance. My goal is: I want to send arbitrary data (arbitrary for the beginning, later it should be sensor data) via wifi, bluetooth or ethernet, the later product must be small (but might be large for testing) and if the testing system (launchpad...?) differs from the product, I want as much code as possible shared between them. Some general words of advice to clear up my confusion are well appreciated!

    I totally understand that this information could be confusing. As mentioned before the SimpleLink SDKs are code portable so you could start you development with one device and be able to move the application to another SimpleLink device with minimum work.

    If you want all the three interfaces (BLE, Wi-Fi and Ethernet) supported, then the only option is to use MSP432E4 + CC31xx and CC26xx devices. Based on the package the size of the PCB (in your final product) with all these devices could be pretty big.

    For development, you should be able to order LaunchPads for MSP432E4 (www.ti.com/.../msp-exp432e401y) and CC26xx (www.ti.com/.../launchxl-cc2640r2); and BoosterPack for CC31xx (http://www.ti.com/tool/CC3120BOOST).

    On the MSP432E4 LaunchPad page (http://www.ti.com/tool/msp-exp432e401y), 

    Hope this information helps!

    Thanks,

    Sai

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