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RF430FRL154H: Questions about RF430FRL154H

Part Number: RF430FRL154H

I am designing a board with the RF430FRL154H chip, in debugging I want to run the board via the battery source but I am confused about how to do this. It appears that the only way to have the battery provide power is by programming the EN_BATSWITCH, which can only be done via software execution (is that correct?).

thanks

SteveS

  • Hello Steve,

    Are you planning on using JTAG programming for debug on the board?

    The EN_BATSWITCH functionality is typically executed on RF field detect for battery powered application. I am not sure if using only a battery to power the device would work for debug programming via JTAG (Alex would know, and I've sent this question his way too).

    If using JTAG, it provides an option of having a VCC connection as well. Is there a specific reason you need to have it only battery powered and not use the JTAG VCC?

  • Generally there are two ways to power the part from the battery.  One way can be activated from the RF field, the other is to permanently connect it.

    After attaching the battery to the device, the battery switch is open.  Obviously at this point you cannot enable the battery switch using a not-executing processor.  Instead this is generally done by introducing an RF field and sending a command to connect the battery switch.

    This is an available feature using the ROM functionality and the FRAM virtual registers, in the General Control register (bits 2 and 3) (see RF430FRL15xH Firmware User's Guide).  Or if you use the NFC example project (which does not have this functionality in ROM) you can create your own custom command to enable the battery switch.  This can be also done without a custom command by putting a command in firmware to enable the battery switch as soon as the processor starts running.  And in this case as soon as the RF field is presented the processor will start running and enable the battery switch.

    If a permanent connection is needed, a wire can be connected between VBAT and VDDSW.  Which is what the battery switch actually connects.