New TI Tiva C Series Launchpad EK-TM4C1294XL

[BravoV]

Details here -> http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad/launchpads-tivac-ek-tm4c1294xl.html#tabs

Brief Arm M4F mcu features :

- 120MHz core, 1MB Flash, 256KB SRAM, 6KB EEPROM
- Cyclical Redundancy Check (CRC) hardware with 16-/32-bit Hash function that support four CRC forms
- Support for four tamper inputs and configurable tamper event response
- 10/100 Ethernet MAC
- Ethernet PHY with IEEE 1588 PTP hardware support
- USB 2.0 OTG/Host/Device with ULPI interface option and Link Power Management (LPM) support
- Four Quad Synchronous Serial Interface (QSSI) modules with Bi-, Quad- and advanced SSI support
- Ten I2C modules with four transmission speeds including high-speed mode

Yay .. finally, Ethernet is here.

Price: $19.99 ... not bad imo, but back ordered ... damn.

[true]

Been waiting for this - I have a project that can use nearly every feature of this to reduce cost and chip count, although I don't need the performance

Waiting to see what distributor pricing will be for the chip...but I hope I can get a hold of this board sooner rather than later.

[remixed123]

Waiting to see what distributor pricing will be for the chip...but I hope I can get a hold of this board sooner rather than later.

Yes, this is a cool dev board for those of us working with the Tiva C ARM Cortex M4 MCUs....or anyone wanting a pretty powerful and affordable ARM Cortex dev board to play with.

According to this page - http://www.ti.com/ww/en/mcu/Tiva_Connected_Launchpad/?DCMP=tivac-launchpad&HQS=mcu-tivc-ek-tm4c129xl-em-lp-en%20&sp_rid_pod4=ODE4MTg4NDIxMzkS1&sp_mid_pod4=45010478&spMailingID=45010478&spUserID=ODE4MTg4NDIxMzkS1&spJobID=380439534&spReportId=MzgwNDM5NTM0S0

Shipment of the dev board begins March 6th. So just order it from the TI website, they ship for free anywhere in the world.

Regarding the pricing on the chip, the similiarly specced TM4C129DNCPDT is being priced at $8.02USD for quanities of 1000 - http://www.ti.com/product/tm4c129dncpdt#samplebuy

Though you will likely need to add another dollar or so onto this price to get a typical Digikey price.

[BravoV]

I think its very clear they're sending this message that contains the current trending jargon buzz words ... 

Why this LaunchPad?

Easily connect your ideas and products to the cloud with the Connected LaunchPad. Evaluate and develop new designs for the Internet of Things and learn how easy it is to get connected to your end customers and provide new value-added services and benefits

Damn, as a hobbyist, I haven't finish exploring the 1st gen Stellaris or Launchpad MCU features yet, and to be honest coming from Atmel AVR as my previous mcu of choice, the 1st gen TI ARM M4F core at 80Mhz is already too powerful for me, now this is at 120Mhz and with all new features, I feel a bit overwhelmed. 

Yes, I've sold my soul to TI when moving from 8 bit mcu to ARM architecture, just glad TI keeps improving it. 

Definitely will get one.

[nowlan]

Hello,
Can someone explain to me the following?:
Four Quad Synchronous Serial Interface

[BravoV]

Hello,
Can someone explain to me the following?:
Four Quad Synchronous Serial Interface

Not claiming an expert, my shot, its part of the TI M4F serial comm peripherals, laymen, its a dedicated hardware based SPI module, but with plenty of extra features.
See the "Comm Peripherals" block below.




Want more details ?  Quote from the datasheet :

Quad Synchronous Serial Interface (QSSI)

The TM4C1294NCPDT microcontroller includes four Quad-Synchronous Serial Interface (QSSI) modules.

All four of the modules support Advanced and Bi-SSI interfaces as well as a Quad-SSI enhancement to provide faster throughput of data. The QSSI module acts as a master or slave interface for synchronous serial communication with peripheral devices that have either Freescale SPI, or Texas Instruments synchronous serial interfaces.

The QSSI performs serial-to-parallel conversion on data received from a peripheral device. The transmit and receive paths are buffered with internal, independent FIFO memories allowing up to eight 16-bit values in Legacy mode and 8-bit values in Advanced, Bi-, and Quad-modes.

The CPU can accesses data in these FIFOs as well as the QSSI's control and status information. A µDMA interface is also provided to allow the transmit and receive FIFOsto be programmed as source/destinationaddresses in the µDMA module.

The TM4C1294NCPDT QSSI modules have the following features:

* Four QSSI channels with Advanced, Bi- and Quad-SSI functionality
* Programmable interface operation for Freescale SPI or Texas Instruments synchronous serial interfaces in Legacy Mode. Support for Freescale interface in Bi- and Quad-SSI mode.
* Master or slave operation
* Programmable clock bit rate and prescaler
* Separate transmit and receive FIFOs, each 16 bits wide and 8 locations deep
* Programmable data frame size from 4 to 16 bits
* Internal loopback test mode for diagnostic/debug testing
* Standard FIFO-based interrupts and End-of-Transmission interrupt
* Efficient transfers using Micro Direct Memory Access Controller (µDMA)
  – Separate channels for transmit and receive
  – Receive single request asserted when data is in the FIFO; burst request asserted when FIFO contains 4 entries
  – Transmit single request asserted when there is space in the FIFO; burst request asserted when four or more entries are available to be written in the FIFO
  – Maskable µDMA interrupts for receive and transmit complete
* Global Alternate Clock (ALTCLK) resource or System Clock (SYSCLK) can be used to generate baud clock.

A bit more about the modes ...

In Quad-SSI mode, allow four bits of data to be received or transmitted at once. Note that in bi- and quad-SSI data transfers are only half-duplex.

[dannyf]

The ethernet stuff is mostly useless.

Hopefully they have fixed the issues with the adc.

[BravoV]

The ethernet stuff is mostly useless.

Hopefully they have fixed the issues with the adc.

You wouldn't care to elaborate on what is wrong with the Ethernet stuff, would you?  What are the ADC issues? Your bald opinion, however valid, is not in and of itself all that informative.

Since this is quite new, I guess he already worked intensively with the pre-release version in order to come up with that kind of bold conclusion ? Especially the ethernet which is totally new in TI M4F families.

[BravoV]

Wow and people bitch about Microchips erratas. The TM4C1294NCPDT has a 71 page errata and is on Si rev2.

LOL ... welcome to TI  , all I can say is just look at the bright side, its better to have tons of "documented" erratas, rather than we have to bump on it the hard way ourself. 

[nowlan]

I missed the part about GPIO.
I see lots of pwm & serial ports when looking at block diagram.

[dannyf]

The TM4C1294NCPDT has a 71 page errata and is on Si rev2.

Take a look at some of the errata for the luminary chips: they will practically give you a heart attack,

[Dago]

Thanks for the tip, I ordered one. I haven't done anything with the MSP430 launchpads or the Stellaris launchpad though but you can't argue with the price. Maybe I'll turn it into a temperature sensor server or something.

The board looks like it's autorouted which is a bit meh!

[BravoV]

I missed the part about GPIO.
I see lots of pwm & serial ports when looking at block diagram.

I guess GPIO is so boring that they don't put it in the main block diagram anymore. 

Just download the mcu datasheet, it has tons of details and also their features which beats common 8 bit mcu gpio out of the water, simply not in the same league. 

The board looks like it's autorouted which is a bit meh!

Yeah, and watch those weird 3 mounting holes, don't have any idea what the pcb designer was thinking. 

[true]

The page is gone and the part is no longer in the estore.

[BravoV]

Yeah, really weird, its totally gone now from TI web site, search result gives nothing. 

Also I did put launchpad in my shopping basket yesterday that I'm going to purchase later, which I knew it was there before, now its gone too from the TI online shopping basket, and I got this notice

The item EK-TM4C1294XL - Tiva C Series TM4C1294 Connected LaunchPad is no longer available. It has been removed from the basket.

[hans]

Luckily the datasheet is still available:
http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tm4c1294ncpdt.pdf

Some of the features really confuses me. Why would anyone need 10 I2C busses..? Is this a case of where people think you can only connect 1 or 2 devices onto 1 I2C bus? Or an exotic application where someone uses the same I2C device 10 times, without address select?

Four Quad SPI modules (for like FLASH chips).. nice, but Microchip's PIC32MZ allows the flash also to be memory mapped. I don't see me using them anything soon though, unless I need some kind of file system running of the FLASH chip (things like webservers or whatever).
They also seem to have forgotten I2S support. You'd say it would have it because TI themselves make bloody audio ADC's and DAC's.

The ethernet functionality has an integrated Phy, which is nice. Except for the fact they dropped the previous Luminary Micro series which had this feature shortly after takeover (in anticipation of this part, how long has it been?), and everyone was furious about that decision.

I guess I will get some boards when they're out, however I still got my other Stellaris boards lying around.. hmm

[dannyf]

You'd say it would have it because TI themselves make bloody audio ADC's and DAC's.

Freescale is pretty good in that department, as well as Analog.

and everyone was furious about that decision.

That was a boneheaded decision on the part of TI. Now they are redeeming themselves.

[AndrejaKo]

Yeah, really weird, its totally gone now from TI web site, search result gives nothing. 

Also I did put launchpad in my shopping basket yesterday that I'm going to purchase later, which I knew it was there before, now its gone too from the TI online shopping basket, and I got this notice

The item EK-TM4C1294XL - Tiva C Series TM4C1294 Connected LaunchPad is no longer available. It has been removed from the basket.

Interesting! I managed to order it and it's still listed as an item in order history. I hope they don't retroactively remove it. It could be extremely useful to me for a project I'll be doing soon.

[BravoV]

Interesting! I managed to order it and it's still listed as an item in order history. I hope they don't retroactively remove it. It could be extremely useful to me for a project I'll be doing soon.

Well, I haven't order mine though, just put it in the shopping basket with other TI stuffs that I'm going to purchase.

Please keep us in the loop how this ended up.

[dannyf]

So, did you launch the chip before they canceled it or did they cancel the chip before they launched it?

[AndrejaKo]

They removed it from the order and shipped the rest of the order today.
^That's what I get for not reading carefully. They shipped the rest of the order today, but the new Launchpad is still in the order. Order status says: "Status: Partial Shipment, Partial Payment Captured"

Also they switched from FedEx to DHL Global Forwarding and this time, there's no tracking number.

[neslekkim]

Also they switched from FedEx to DHL Global Forwarding and this time, there's no tracking number.

Saw that to, when FedEx finally started to remember where to deliver my packages..

[tszaboo]

Some of the features really confuses me. Why would anyone need 10 I2C busses..? Is this a case of where people think you can only connect 1 or 2 devices onto 1 I2C bus? Or an exotic application where someone uses the same I2C device 10 times, without address select?

If you make a backplane with some 8 plug-in card, each of them is the same, you spare a lot of headache if you don't need to use addressing. This looks very promising for some projects.
I hope that all the communication ports are working the same way, and there are no suprises in the errata (like I2C3 has an easter egg, if you configure the same way as the others)

[AndrejaKo]

Oh, don't worry about the errata. There's just 71 pages of it! It almost seems like nothing works correctly on that chip. I just hope that they give us revision 2 (or hopefully newer) on the new secret Launchpad. I mean, they even managed to mess up the ROM implementation of TivaWare in version 1. Here's a download link for those who can't be bothered to look it up: http://www.ti.com/lit/er/spmz850a/spmz850a.pdf

[dannyf]

It is a little bit disappointing to see that TI continues to stumble on this. The issues with the luminary chips are widely known and should have been addressed long time ago. Yet, they are still here.