Dear CC430 Blog,

My name is Miguel. I work with on the CC430 new product development team as an applications engineer and I want to talk a little bit about the wireless networking protocol that TI will release along with the sample kits for the part, called SimpliciTI.

SimpliciTI has existed for some time, providing support for a number of Low Power Wireless and MSP430 tools such as the eZ430-RF2500. It supports the CC1100, CC1110, CC2500, CC2510, CC2430, and CC2420 transceivers as well as the MSP430F2274, MSP430FG4618, and MSP430F2618 microcontrollers. So the CC430 is just the latest addition to an increasingly popular and easy way to implement a wireless network. It was just recently overhauled into 1.1.0 and has a very robust feature set for the 12KB or so of flash memory required to run the stack, including tidbits like automatic message acknowledgements, frequency agility, and encryption support. 

The protocol supports both distributed peer to peer networks as well as managed simple-star networks with range extenders. The devices are abstracted into what are referred to as End Devices (ED), Range Extenders (RE) and Access Points (AP). An AP manages the SimpliciTI network and relays messages back and forth; both AP’s and RE’s are typically always on and mains powered. ED’s have the option to be sleeping devices in order to reduce power consumption, and have slightly smaller memory requirements. These are the nodes that can operate for years on a pair of AA batteries due to the extremely low power consumption of the silicon and low-overhead networking protocol implementation.  

But what I probably like most about the protocol is the super easy to learn, 7-instruction API. Its simplicity allows me to focus my time on the applications at hand and making them work in the unobtrusive protocol framework rather than in learning the intricacies of the actual protocol. The API provides supports for initialization, (un-)linking, message receive, message transmit, and device management functionality. The architecture of the protocol is also pretty close to the hardware. For one, this means it’s easy to port to different TI hardware platforms but for two, it’s also a reasonable dive into the bits if you want that deeper understanding of the protocol that can be hard to wrap your brain around with larger projects. For more information on the protocol, see www.ti.com/simpliciTI.

So keep on the lookout for the CC430 samples release on www.ti.com/cc430 and try SimpliciTI out for yourself!

Thanks, ~Miguel

Anonymous
  • i want to ask something about simpliciti. is it possible to communicate "polling" type of communication between node and access point.? so end devices can sleep. my question is about this, may i poll the data from the end device when it is sleeping? is it possible in simpliciti. there is many type of communication, peer to peer ,point to point , poll response etc. may you list me what kind of communication styles simpliciti support?

  • Miguel,

    I started working with the EVM. My final goal is to se a star network controlled by the chronos, communicating with the two boards you game me but I wanted to start with a simple peer to peer link with the two boards.

    Nevertheless I had some issues. I could not find anything to start with the boards on the EVM webpage so I installed CCSv4 and I downloaded SimpliciTI-CCS1.1.1. I read the document with reference SWRA243 Version 1.3, SimpliciTI Sample Application User’s Guide,  that comes with the SimpliciTI download . I followed the steps to program the CC43O on  the boards. I tried to use the Simple Peer to Peer link that is described on Page 27 and it looks like the talker never established communication with the listener.

    This is what I did.

    I downloaded the LinkListend to the listener and the LinkTo to the Talker.

    Then, I powered the boards and the two LEDs on the EVMs turned on.

    Next, I pushed the button on the listener and D1 turned off leaving LED2 as the only one turned on. Everything was OK till that point.

    Then I pushed the button on the Talker and both LEDs starting to blink, indicating that I the link could not been established.

    I reseted both boards and tried several times but the result was the same.

    Then I switched the listener with the talker (I re-programmed the boards) and the same happen.

    I then added the crystals to the boards to see if they would make any difference but the same happened.

    I will appreciate if you can let me know how can I get them to communicate between each other and if there is any previous work on communicating this EVM with the chronos.

    Regards,

    Efrain

  • - Data sheet for the part was actually split up for sampling, search "Preliminary Electrical Specifications" for prelim electrical parameters.

    - The EVM PCB is the maximum size for the temperature chamber we use to test... I agree it would have been nice to have a little more space.

    - No ZigBee download for CC430. The integrated CC1101 does not support the ZigBee protocol

  • .... is there a Zigbee download for the new cc430 em?

  • I just received the CC430 EVM. It's a rather funky design. Why did they not assemble all the ports? That seemed a little odd. Also, it would have been better to space out the connectors more; they're all jammed together. Why didn't they include a RS-232 debug port?

    I haven't loaded them yet but the RF software examples look good. I'm very glad that you guys just started with some basic functionality first.