cc2538 Zigbee low level radio transmission

Christopher Harris

Other Parts Discussed in Thread: CC2538, Z-STACK, CC2530, TIMAC, CC2538-SW

Hello All,

I am absolutely new to low power RF and zigbee/cc25xx, but I am looking get down into the dirty details of how the zigbee stack (Z-Stack) sends and receives data on the cc2538 chipset. Can anyone provide insight?

I've been looking through all the source code for the mac layer for a while now. Is the answer that it does all communication through radio register manipulation?

If this is all detailed somewhere, sorry I missed it and would greatly appreciate being pointed in the right direction (I've looked through the CC2538 firmware driver API and all the documentation for z-stack as well).

If there is an example of transmission of a packet on the radio, that would be awesome.

Thanks so much!

over 12 years ago

0 Leo Hendrawan over 12 years ago

TI__Guru 56650 points

Hi,

the "digital part" of the on-chip RF transceiver between the CC2538 and CC2530/1 is really similar. Therefore it is basically possible to refer to the CC2530 software example (basicRf module) on how the RF can be operated:

http://www.ti.com/lit/zip/swrc135

However this simple example code doesn't implement CSMA/CA mechanism which is required by the IEEE 802.15.4 specification. For this, you need to refer e.g. to the TIMAC solution. You can find the necessary file for this under "MAC" -> "Low Level" project folder.

0 TA12012 over 12 years ago in reply to Leo Hendrawan

TI__Mastermind 36415 points

Also,

Please refer to the software foundation for the CC2538, which includes a PER tester (Packet Error Rate) tester. This software demo is provided as open source and you can easily traces the source steps to see how to program the radio device.

http://www.ti.com/tool/cc2538-sw

Regards,
/TA

0 Leo Hendrawan over 12 years ago in reply to TA12012

TI__Guru 56650 points

TA,

thanks for adding this, i was actually going to advise to look at this, but couldn't find the PER test inside the foundation firmware package itself. And i just found out, that the PER software is a separate software package:

so to make clear:

- CC2538 foundation firmware including driverlib and usblib: http://www.ti.com/lit/zip/swrc271

- CC2538 PER software: http://www.ti.com/lit/zip/swrc272

it is somehow confusing since the PER software can't be accessed in the CC2538 product web page: http://www.ti.com/product/cc2538, and instead you need to go to the CC2538 foundation firmware web page to have the link to the PER software.

0 Christopher Harris over 12 years ago

Prodigy 70 points

Thanks everyone for your help!

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cc2538 Zigbee low level radio transmission