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How to interface CC3100 to PC over Wi-Fi?

vinayak nayak
Prodigy 100 points
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: CC3100, CC3200

Hello, I am a beginner in this field.

My requirement is to transfer a bmp image from PC to the custom PCB over Wi-Fi which has CC3100 in it. The FPGA connected to the SPI port of CC3100 must read the image as and when it is available.

But before making the PCB, I would want to try this using any available evaluation boards.

My questions are :

1. Is it possible to do what I am planning, with the chip?

2. Evaluation board which has CC3100 with antenna connections and SPI pins available for external connection?

3. Any software application from TI is available to send the bmp image (or any data) from PC to CC3100 over Wi-Fi?

4. How do I configure CC3100 for my requirement, I don't see any register settings in the datasheet? OR I don't need to do any thing and just use it?

As far as possible, I would like my evaluation set-up to be closely resembling the actual one. So I would prefer evaluation boards which has only CC3100 and not many of TI micro controllers as I don't use them in final set-up.

I would greatly appreciate any help regarding this.

Thanks,

Vinayak

  • 0
    Guru 21435 points

    The CC3100 is a WiFI chip, you will need some sort of host MCU to make this all work, you could use the Tiva C LaunchPad, or you could just go with the CC3200 LaunchPad, which has a ARM Cortex M4 MCU and WiFI chip all in one.

    Or are you wanting to just connect the FPGA to the CC3100? If so, then you will need to port the SimpleLink API to your FPGA. My knowledge on FPGAs is limited, so I am not even sure you will be able to do this. And this porting exercise is really only something that someone with extensive experience should attempt.

    So back to the CC3200 Launchpad, which sounds like your best option. You could hook up your FPGA to your MCU via SPI and the MCU could manage the process. 

    All of this does sound rather complicated, and not something I think a beginner should be starting with. My recommendation is to get the CC3200 LaunchPad and play  around with the many examples that come with the CC3200 SDK.

    Is this project a university/colleague assignment? Or are you actually wanting to build this?

    Glenn.

  • 0
    TI__Mastermind 26155 points

    Hi Vinayak,

     

    You can use the CC3100 with any device which is capable of hosing the application and can communicate with CC3100 over SPI or UART

    It is very much possible to transfer the file from the PC over wifi.

    Unfortunately we don't have any sample to showcase the above usecase but a file is a stream of data in the end and can be transfered over tcp.

    Please let me know if this answers your question. 

    Regards,

    Ankur

  • 0 in reply to Ankur Baranwal
    Prodigy 100 points

    Hi Ankur,

    Yes, you answered #1 and 3. Thank you very much for that. Do you have any details on the rest?

    Vinayak

  • 0 in reply to Glenn Vassallo
    Prodigy 100 points

    Hi Glenn,

    Thanks for your time. 

    As I could see from the data sheet for CC3100, there is an ARM processor in it as well. I see the unit as a complete Wi-Fi solution which can receive RF data (with the help of antenna connection) and decode the standard protocol to give out the data payload over SPI to the interfacing device. Please correct me if I am wrong. So I was hoping the FPGA to receive data over SPI and not mess with any thing related to Wi-Fi.

    So in my project CC3100 is a Wi-Fi receiver. 

    I am just trying to save making another board which has data storage and CC3100 as transmitter. Instead trying to send data from PC over Wi-FI.

    Will take a look at  CC3200.

    Thanks,

    Vinayak

  • 0 in reply to vinayak nayak
    Guru 21435 points

    The MCU in the CC3100 is purely for WiFi work, it provides no peripheral support other than SPI and UART to enable communication with the NWP (network processor subsystem).

    Refer to my previous post for more details on what is required.

    Glenn.

  • 0 in reply to Glenn Vassallo
    TI__Mastermind 26155 points

    Vinayak,

    As Glenn mentioned the Arm processor on CC3100 is purely wifi and you will require an external MCU/processor which can host the application.

    Both CC3100 Booster pack and CC3200 Launchpad has the chip antenna on board. You can refer to the CC3100/CC3200 wiki for important link and details.

    http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/CC31xx_&_CC32xx

    Glenn, Thanks for the information.

    Regards,

    Ankur

  • 0 in reply to Ankur Baranwal
    Prodigy 100 points

    Thanks all for your inputs. I will keep you updated with the progress

    Vinayak

  • 0 in reply to vinayak nayak
    Intellectual 765 points

    Hi Vinayak,

    Your projects seems interesting to me, you can have a look over spark.io as they are doing programming of STM controller over the air, and they have opensource codes available for it on github. I know that your application is different than spark.io as you are using FPGA, but having a look on that will give you an insight.

    Waiting for your updates on this project.

    Best Regards,

    Rushi Gajjar

  • 0 in reply to Glenn Vassallo
    Intellectual 765 points

    Hi Glenn, 

    I am little bit confused over selecting the CC3100 and CC3000, my application is like transfer the pure decoded data which has come over WiFi to the OMAP4460.

    As my point of view,

    CC3000 will just transfer data over SPI without making any changes, the host MCU (which will receive data from CC3000 through SPI) has to take care of interpreting data into useful information. so the computation overhead is on Processor (OMAP4460 in my case).

    CC3100 will receive data through WiFi and convert that data into useful information (plain decoded text) and then it will sent to host processor through SPI, so computation overhead is totally removed from the host processor.

    As I am using OMAP4460, the CC3200 will be overqualified on my application.

    Am I right? Whats your Opinion?

    Best Regards,

    Rushi Gajjar

  • 0 in reply to Rushi Gajjar
    Prodigy 100 points

    I have a basic doubt: The C code in the demo examples of the SDK is to the CC3100 or to the MCU which is connected to CC3100 via SPI? If it is the latter, from where does the processor within CC3100 gets the software image? Is it preloaded

    Thanks,

    Vinayak

  • 0 in reply to Rushi Gajjar
    Prodigy 100 points

    Hi Rushi,

    Thank you for the information.

    Vinayak

  • 0 in reply to vinayak nayak
    Intellectual 400 points

    Hi Glenn,

    How to post data to stream from cc3100 . We diid the post string by using arduino example by sparkfun.

     Can you help me on how to post data in cc3100?

    Thanks in advance ,

    Regards,

    Arun Soman