USB to Serial Adapter compatible with CCS

What MSP430 device is being used for this BLDC Sensorless motor control board?

To answer your question, CCS would still allow you to develop the firmware and create the image for the device (assuming it is a TI microcontroller), but if there isn't access to JTAG signals, CCS will not be able to help you with downloading the code into the device and performing single-step.

Olivier Nsabimana said:

I was given a board with MCU already on it

Were you not also given any documentation with it?

Surely, you must have a schematic (aka "circuit diagram"), at least?!

input terminals ...  Vbus, UCA0RX, UCA0TX

I very much doubt that both UCA0RX and UCA0TX are inputs?!

UCA0RX, UCA0TX, ... I think they are UART's receive and transmit pins

You should verify that with the schematic...

Olivier Nsabimana said:

I was wondering if there is another tool that is compatible with CCS and that only needs to connect to available pins UCA0RX, UCA0TX, which I think they are UART's receive and transmit pins.

No.
Most MSPs have a BSL (a bootstrap load firmware) built-in, that provides a simple programming interface through a serial line, however, it usually requires the rx/tx signal to be attached to two other pins (mostly TA.0/TA.1) adn also requires the RTS and DTR lines to be connected to the MSPs RST and TEST pin.

If you don't have access to these pins or if they are used by other circuitry (especially if they are inputs), then your only hope is that the already existing firmware contains a proprietary firmware updater code.

However, depending on circuitry and MSP, you might be able to solder the necessary connections for BSL or JTAG onto the chip. However, it's not a solution for mass production.

P.s.: if the chip supports the Spy-By-Wire protocol,then you only need three lines: RST, TEST and GND, for a JTAG-like connection.

Thanks a lot Jens-Micheal,

The chip on the board in question is a CC430F5137. 

The pins accessible for programming are USCI_AO SPI  SIMO and SOMI respectively. Ultimately it means the chip support spi-bi-wire interface.

I was reading the following article http://eetimes.com/design/embedded/4008197/MCU-debug-on-a-pin-count-budget?pageNumber=2. I am quite convinced that Code Composer could be used to load the program to the chip.  The reason being that spi-bi-wire protocol fundamentally converts Jtag to spi outside of the chip and back to Jtag protocol inside the chip as outlined in the afore-mentioned article. Any further advice and or opinion on this would be appreciated.

can you also please tell me the main difference between Code Composer Studio and IAR Embedded Workbench?

Cheers,

Olivier

Olivier Nsabimana said:

fundamentally converts Jtag to spi

Not really. SPI has a dedicated input and output line. SBW, however, has a three-phase clock which switches between input and ouput (simulating one of the three JTAG signals on the same pin on each clock cycle). IMHO, I2C fits better (one clock, one data line, and data direction changes, if only for the acknowledge). But well, maybe I'm too strict here.  :)

Olivier Nsabimana said:

The chip on the board in question is a CC430F5137

Doesn't the CC430 have a bootloader that allows wireless update? I know that the Chronos, which has a CC430F6x chip, allows for wireless update. And I think it is implemented into the bootloader. But I'm not 100% sure.

Olivier Nsabimana said:

can you also please tell me the main difference between Code Composer Studio and IAR Embedded Workbench

IAR is a 3rd party product, whiel CCS is based on Eclipse and from TI.

IAR implements a few more features (e.g. a CPU simulator, slightly better code optimization for a bit smaller code, and some other features), but in th every most cases, it makes no difference. However, the limitations on the free versions are different.
Besides the two, there is MSPGCC, a free compiler suite based on GCC (without IDE), and a few others too.