Microcontrollers

2021-07-09 Friday

Notes On Microcontrollers </center>

^ Manufacturers of Microcontrollers

Manufacturers visited:

• STMicro of Switzerland
• NXP of the Netherlands
• Microchip
• Nordic

Not yet visited:

• Cypress Semiconductor
• Renesas of Japan
• Silabs
• Dialog
• Qualcomm

^ NordicSemi

An nRF9160 development kit:

• https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-hardware/nrf9160-dk

Notes on building, flashing to board, and testing example vRF9160 projects and demos:

• https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/46281/nrf9160-at_client-sample-project

^ nRF9160 Getting Started Pages

2021-07-20 Tuesday Searching at NordicSemi.com specifically for example code for the nRF9160:

• https://www.nordicsemi.com/search?query=nRF9160+example+code

The most important information for firmware starting works at this link for nRF9160 SDK. Note that there is mention of Zephyr RTOS integration:

• https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-software/nRF-Connect-SDK

Hmm, what we thought was a code bundle, code examples has only pre-built binaries. This developers' forum post spells out in detail what was available -- three demos only -- in 2019. See the replies from Nordic's engineer Oyvind:

• https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/43768/nrf9160-project-setup-tutorial

2021-07-25
This may be the best "getting started" page at Nordic:

• https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/nrf/getting_started.html
• https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/zephyr/getting_started/index.html#getting-started
• https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/zephyr/samples/index.html#samples-and-demos

^ Hard to locate nRF9160 DK schematic!

A page at Nordicsemi which links to schematics in a larger downloadable file, or so claimed:

• https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fug_nrf91_dk%2FUG%2Fnrf91_DK%2Fintro.html&cp=2_0_4

Another link seemingly close to the schematic but not getting us there:

• https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fstruct_nrf91%2Fstruct%2Fnrf91.html
• https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/pdf/nRF9160_DK_HW_User_Guide_v1.0.pdf

^ nRF9160 SDK supported boards

• https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/zephyr/boards/index.html#boards

nRF9160 Development Kit (DK) boards:

• https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/zephyr/boards/arm/nrf9160dk_nrf52840/doc/index.html
• https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/zephyr/boards/arm/nrf9160dk_nrf9160/doc/index.html

Smaller dev board from Sparkfun, Thingy:91 . . .

• https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/3/c/0/3/f/16820-User_Guide-Nordic_Semiconductor_Thingy91_Multisensor_Prototyping_Kit.pdf
Nordic web site pages related to Thingy:91:
• https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fps_nrf9160%2FnRF9160_html5_keyfeatures.html nRF9160 key features
• https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fref_at_commands%2FREF%2Fat_commands%2Fintro.html LTE modem AT command reference
• https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-hardware/Nordic-Thingy-91/Download#infotabs Thingy:91 downloadable resources, including schematic

^ nRF9160 Thing Plus by Sparkfun

Some notes on Sparkfun development board named nRF9160 Thing Plus</b>:

• https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/5/7/c/a/c/nRF9160_Thing_Plus.pdf

How to configure and drive UART on nRF9160:

• https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/73146/tips-on-making-a-uart-sensor-driver-for-nrf9160

^ ARM Cortex-M33 CMSIS

ARM Cortex-M33 hardware abstraction layer and CMSIS details here:

• https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fps_nrf9160%2Fcpu.html

• https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fps_nrf9160%2Fcpu.html
• https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fps_nrf9160%2Fmemory.html&cp=2_0_0_3_1_0&anchor=memorymap

Explore and download CMSIS from Github:

• https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/embedded/cmsis
• https://github.com/ARM-software/CMSIS_5
• https://github.com/ARM-software/CMSIS_5/releases/tag/5.8.0

^ Microcontroller Qualities and Considerations

Low power benchmark testing:

• https://www.eembc.org/ulpmark/
• https://www.eembc.org/ulpmark/ulp-cp/scores.php

Out of Order Execution:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-order_execution

^ References

Util nrfjprog suppposedly here:

• https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-tools/nRF-Command-Line-Tools/Download#infotabs

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