Search for the optimal processor family

[PicoPuls]

I am rather new to processors with just a few smaller projects behind.
For that reason, flowcode is extremely interesting.

I almost decided to use the PIC dsPIC33EP512MU810 and to configure timers and quadrature encoders
for a specific project.
After half a year I gave up as there were thousands of pages of documentation and different forums
proved to have almost no experience in quadrature encoders related to the bigger chips like dsPIC33EP512MU810.

I kept searching and testing different processor families until I run into this free utility
http://www.st.com/en/development-tools/stm32cubemx.html

It seems from my perspective to be possible to reduce the configuration effort
from half a year to half an hour and get a perfect overview of all chip resources.
This is the kind of utility that Microchip doesn't have (yet) as far as I know

My question and suggestion
Could you make Flowcode support Discovery kit 32F429IDISCOVERY ?
ST has manufactured millions of their discovery kits,
It has averything including a QVGA, and the price is very low: approx $30
I guess this would be a great starting point for many developers.
and this low cost module can be used in the final product as well.

Looking forward to your comments
Best regards
B


http://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/pro ... overy.html

[LeighM]

Good news, this board is one of the targets for our soon to be released update to Flowcode V7 that supports ST ARM devices.

[PicoPuls]

Awesome !

What time frame are we talking about - until I can use it ?

In my view That combination has the potential to become a revolution:

1 The initialization simplicity of STM32 Cube
2 The programming simplicity of Flowcode
3 The low cost and the power of the discovery Board 32F429IDISCOVERY

[Benj]

Hello,

What time frame are we talking about - until I can use it ?

We are in Beta now, my guess is weeks. Probably the first half of Feb unless something major crops up.

[PicoPuls]

Good news!

For programming I would guess that the ST USB drive must be installed
http://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/pro ... nk009.html

Will it then be possible to program 32F429IDISCOVERY directly from Flowcode over the USB cable ?

Thanks & Best regards

[LeighM]

Hi
Yes the board is programmed directly from Flowcode, as it is detected as an attached drive, via the USB connection and without the need for drivers.
It can also be programmed via ST-LINK

[Benj]

With the 32F429IDISCOVERY board we support the LCD and touchscreen via components. Is there anything else on the board you would like to see supported?

We are currently investigating USB and Ethernet to see how viable these would be to add.

[PicoPuls]

Thanks for asking, In my case I need

1. UART serial communication over USB to a PC (Very high priority ) As fast as possible

2. Quadrature Encoder (QEI) using the chip hardware, 3 wires from encoder A,B,Reset Each revolution
3. Hardware 16 bit? Counter of clock =timebase with Reset Each revolution (same reset as QEI )
I guess the CUBE takes care of that. Just need to know how to read the resulting count with flowcode

4. The 64-Mbit SDRAM on the board is a great resource. Is some Flowcode support needed to use it ?

5.Approx 10 high speed AD are needed. Flowcode support ?

> You wrote: we support the LCD and touchscreen via components
6. Can a simple menu be created with these components ?
7. Is it possible to draw lines, just to make a very simple oscilloscope graph?

Ethernet is necessary in the long run ( low priority right now )

Thanks & Best regards
BO

[Benj]

I've forwarded your request onto the ST ARM gurus to have a look at and comment on.

I can maybe answer a few.

1. UART serial communication over USB to a PC (Very high priority ) As fast as possible

This should be easy enough but we are investigating. It's certainly on the list.

5.Approx 10 high speed AD are needed. Flowcode support ?

Yep ADC inputs should be in and working, as are DAC outputs.

> You wrote: we support the LCD and touchscreen via components
6. Can a simple menu be created with these components ?
7. Is it possible to draw lines, just to make a very simple oscilloscope graph?

Yes to both.

[Alan_37]

Hello

Any News on the ARM Update release date ?

Thanks

[Benj]

The ST Arm stuff is now in and working great, unfortunately we have some bugs relating to other additions that have been made which we are working to resolve.

Hopefully coming soon...

[PicoPuls]

Really looking forward to this,

I would also be happy to test a beta until the final product appears...

Best regards
BO

[PicoPuls]

Hi

Latest news with the bugs ??
... we can´t wait

Can we have a beta to get started ?

[Benj]

We made a release yesterday which is looking very promising. We will be releasing this to VC's today and if all goes well we will likely release to the public next week.

[Alan_37]

Hi Ben

Can we have the exact list of the new supported ARM
Processors ?

Was wandering if the STM32F407ZET6 is supported
Cause i cant wait to buy the update

[PicoPuls]

Flowcode beta evaluation question

The Discovery kit 32F429IDISCOVERY
has STM32F429ZIT6 microcontroller featuring 2 Mbytes of Flash memory, 256 Kbytes of RAM in an LQFP144 package
http://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/pro ... overy.html

When Flowcode is started - NEW ARM-STF4-32F429Discovery
and VIEW CHIP a small chip with 28 pins appears

Where can the LQFP144 be found ?

Best regards
BO

[PicoPuls]

An other beta question

I would very much like to use STM32F746-100
There is Flowcode support for 32F746Nucleo144 and flowcode has 108 pins in the chip view

How compatible are they ?



Flowcode supports many ST-chips now !
I just made an OCR over the beta menu , case somebody wants a preview and reference for the discussion

STF0
32F0308Discovery
32F030K6
32F030Nucleo64
32F030R8
32F031K6
32F031Nucleo32
32F042K6
32F042Nucleo32
32F051C8
32F051Discovery
32F051K8
32F051R8
32F070Nucleo64
32F072Discovery
32F072Nucleo64
32F091Nucleo64

STF3
32F302Nucleo64
32F303K6
32F303Nucleol44
32F303Nucleo32
32F303Nudeo64
32F303VC
32F303VE
32F303ZE
32F334K8
32F334Nucleo64
32F3Discovery

STF4
32F401Nucleo64
32F405RG
32F405ZG
32F407ZE
32H10Nudeo64
32F411ED(SC0very
32F411Nudeo64
32F4URC
32F4URE
32R11VC
32F411VE
32F4290scovery
32H46Nucleol44
32F446Nucleo64
32F446ZE
32R69Discovery

STF7
32F746Discovery
32F746Nucleo144

[Benj]

Hello,

When Flowcode is started - NEW ARM-STF4-32F429Discovery
and VIEW CHIP a small chip with 28 pins appears

I believe for this device we only allow you to control the pins that are available for general purpose I/O. A lot of the pins are used by the display and touchscreen and other peripherals we will hopefully soon support.

The display component will use some of these hidden pins behind the scenes. Should hopefully make things easier so it all just works rather than having to work out all the pin connections for the display and assigning them.

In the long run this could be a mistake but for now it's a starting point.

I would very much like to use STM32F746-100
There is Flowcode support for 32F746Nucleo144 and flowcode has 108 pins in the chip view

How compatible are they ?

The answer is probably fairly compatible, however we probably need to make a specific FCD for the device you want. I think it's mainly just a case of us doing the work to add the devices. I'll ask and see if we can get it added or if it can simply be used as is.

[PicoPuls]

I am not sure my conclsions are right, but this is the way I am arguing
according to the original heading of this post "Search for the optimal processor family"

Matrix doesn't offer any ST boards as far as I know.
ST has some great and cheap evaluation boards like 32F429IDISCOVERY

I am arguing that I would like a board that offers even better connectivity
to speed up development. Size doesn't matter, price doesn't matter in this stage.

The best I have found is
https://shop.mikroe.com/development-boa ... -pro-stm32
in combination with STM32F746VGT6
It has everything: 216 MHz Cortex M7, 1 MB Flash 320 k RAM, USB, Ethernet.....
https://shop.mikroe.com/mcu-cards/v7/ea ... 32f746vgt6
It is over-qualified for almost all tasks.

When development is ready and Flowcode (soon) supports even more ST chips it should be easy to
migrate to a smaller and cheaper and more optimized ST chip.

The factor that makes ST outstanding is the SMT32Cube program. No other processor offers such a program and this single program is in my view just as important as the entire compiler.
Actually the main motivation to use ST

This is my arguing behind why Flowcode support for STM32F746VGT6 would be the very best starting point.

I am looking forward to comments on this.....

[QMESAR]

The factor that makes ST outstanding is the SMT32Cube program. No other processor offers such a program and this single program is in my view just as important as the entire compiler.
Actually the main motivation to use ST

I cannot agree with this as the STMcube in my opinion does nothing more than what TI code composer or MPLABX with the HARMONY Application layer and Libraries can do
in fact compareing the application libraries that are include in Code Composer and MARMONY besides the normal USB, UART stuff etc it include full user application layers for things like Advanced PMSM motor Control,LED lightning ,and many more
DC-DC converter systems ,and many more MPLAB Include a Data section in which you can log and display real time data from any application and trace functionalities with the RealICE debugger and programmer

In my opinion there is a lot to be compared before saying there is no processor that offer what STM offers with their IDE

Just saying

[PicoPuls]

Hi QMESAR

From my perspective, i might be wrong. I know.
I am also not very experienced in processor development.

But I was searching during half a year
how to configure the Quadrature Encoder in Microchip dsPIC33EP512 MU810 without success
even after having read thousands of complicated pages that gave limited overview.

The same thing could be accomplished within an hour with STM32CUBE
with a perfect overview at the same time,
See image showing a small fraction of the timing graphic interface of STM32F429 Discovery in STM32CUBE
just as an example. This is awesome.

I would be extremely happy if Microchip offers the same degree of powerful simplicity,
Maybe they already do, but I have missed it so far.

It is my guess that the combination Flowcode + STM32CUBE has the potential to become super powerful,
and it would be great if Flowcode can integrate the STM32CUBE workflow and write some sample code and application notes.

After all, the chip resources are so very valuable as soon as you gain overview and can configure them easily.

Best regards
BO

[QMESAR]

Hi
Like I said there are many things to compare before you can say no other processors offer what STM is offering
below a few screen shots from TI's HALcogen configurator and code generator we will not even look at the Safety critical mcu which Ti is producing as they are ina league which
the Normal ARM M3, M4 and New M7 core can not talk with these safety critical micro controllers controlleras the TMs570xxx devices these are also ARM based but totally different.
Then secondly Microchip has similar tools for PIC32 which runs in MPLABxand Harmony .

Another issue is you are comparing 32 bit mcu with 16 bit mcu and vise versa this has no use as each architecture has it pros and cons and its tools that support it the dsPIC if you want to have an easy configuration and and code generation then use the MATLAB block set which support the dsPIC the tools are available fort all manufacturers it depends on what you need and what you want to do .
STM is not the only one having these magic tools they are not so magic as you think in my opinion you need a very good understanding of the mcu you are using before you can use these tools with great success.

I also fail to see how Flowcode and these tools can be beneficial together in a combo package Flowcode has it very unique feature and benefit to the user and so has these other tools but all tools chains require the user to know the device he is working with ,there is no magic tool that can handle all automatically .An example if you know the dsPIC Encoder you can configure it in Flowcode with in 3 minutes as any other peripheral you can use in Flowcode but yet again you need to know the device to use the tool properly

just my opinion good luck ,hope you find a tool chain that serves you well

[PicoPuls]

Very interesting indeed, that the new Flowcode 7 with ARM support is out now !


Would it be possible to use one internal timer as image shows ?
How do I figure out the initialisation code ?

Internal_Timer.jpg (20.43 KiB) Viewed 20089 times