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MSP-EXP430F5438 & Spy-Bi-Ware of MSP-EXP430G2 LaunchPad

Laszlo Nemeti
Prodigy 85 points
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: MSP430F5438A

Hi All,

I have an MSP-EXP430G2 LaunchPad board. It has an emulator circuit capable of debugging and programming many of the MSP430 value line MCUs via the SBW interface.

In the near future I will get an MSP-EXP430F5438 too. This board does not  have an emulator circuit, so this board requires an MSP430 Flash Emulation Tool (MSP-FET430UIF) or equivalent programming tool to download code and debug the MSP430F5438A. Depending on the MSP430F5438A datasheets this MCU can be programmed via both JTAG/SBW interfaces.

My questions are: Can I use the LaunchPad SBW interface to program/debug the MSP-EXP430F5438? Are there any HW/SW limits in the LaunchPad emulator circuit compared with MSP-FET430UIF? ( I know LaunchPad has no JTAG interface).

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Laszlo

  • 0
    Expert 1610 points

    Hi Laszlo,

    one thing is, that the emulation tool on the lauchpad can not blow the code protection fuse. But for development that should be  a "non-issue". Apart from that, if your board has access to the appropriate pins that should be no problem.

    Cheers,

    Jan

  • 0 in reply to Jan Kesten
    Prodigy 85 points

    Hi Jan,

    Thank you for your usefull answer. I have checked the board pins, they can be accesed via the board JTAG FET tool connector.

    I have to make an interconnet cable.

    Regards,

    Laszlo

  • 0 in reply to Laszlo Nemeti
    Prodigy 85 points

    I have created and tested my DIY cable: it works perfectly.

    Reading all the 256kB flash memory of the MSP430F5438A takes 35 seconds (using FET-Pro430 Lite Software). 

    It is not very fast but works well.

    Regards,

    Laszlo

  • 0 in reply to Laszlo Nemeti
    Guru 227245 points

    Laszlo Nemeti said:
    It is not very fast but works well.

    Did you ever try to flash a PIC? There flashing 256 bytes takes half a minute.
    Well, a bit less, but not much: you're getting ~8k/s. The (older 14bit) PICs are by a factor of 20-30 slower, taking up to half a minute for 8k. Really no fun if you have to program some hundred in a row.

    Also, I guess, once your prgrams really require 256k code space, you're at the point where you have already bought a 'real' FET and use parallel JTAG, which is significantly faster.

    However, I'm surprised the LaunchPad supports the 5438A. The last info I got is that the LaunchPad only supports (knows) 2x family devices with SBW.

  • 0 in reply to Jens-Michael Gross
    Prodigy 85 points

    Hi 

    I tried to flash PICs (14 bit core), but the maximum code size was only  3kB. I did not measure the time exactly, but the programming taked less than 10 seconds.

    I simply wanted to know if it is possible to program 5438A with LaunchPad. It seems LanchPad is not limited to only 2x family devices. 

    I would be very happy if my programs required 256k code space, but I am only a starter in MCU programming. I used LanchPad to read the memory content of the pre-programmed 5438A (using FET-Pro430 Lite Software) for backup. This reading time was 35 seconds (~8kB/s).

    After I had got the flash memory content, I compiled the "MSP-EXP430F5438(A) Example Software" with CCS5 and used LuanchPad to program/debug it. It also worked, but i did not measure the writing speed.

    Regards,

    Laszlo


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