Nuts and Volts - March 2018

J-LINK OB. Converting our ST-Link to J-LINK will increase the programming speed and allow the use of some of the other J-LINK features.

You can get the conversion code from the Segger website. The process is easy. Download the STLinkReflash. exe file from the Segger site, run it, and follow the prompts to upgrade your Nucleo-F030R8. The upgrade steps are captured in Screenshot 1.

STMCube32MX

Now that we have our Nucleo-F030R8 upgraded to J-LINK, let’s begin our firmware development process. We’ll use STMCube32MX to generate the firmware that we’ll use to configure the Nucleo-F030R8’s ARM microcontroller.

Once you’ve downloaded and installed STMCube32MX, start a new project and select boards with the Board Selector tab. Then, select STM32F0 in the MCU Series box. This will bring up the supported development boards. Select the Nucleo64 board that is loaded with the STM32F030R8Tx as shown in Screenshot 2.

Clicking on the STM32F030R8Tx entry will take us to Screenshot 3, which is a graphical depiction of the Nucleo-F030R8’s STM32F030R8T6’s current hardware configuration.

By choosing the Nucleo-F030R8 as a base configuration, the clock configuration is also already done for us. You can see in Screenshot 4 that we have 48 MHz across the board to the MCU, peripherals, and busses.

Our job is to splice in the CFAL9664B-F-B1’s SPI configuration, and that task has been accomplished in Screenshot 5. All of the STM32F030R8T6 I/O pin connections to the module have been labeled, and the associated STM32F030R8T6’s I/O pins have been designated as outputs or alternate function pins.

ADVANCED TECHNIQUES FOR DESIGN ENGINEERS

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n SCREENSHOT 1. It’s pretty simple. Run the STLinkRefresh.exe program and select the logical steps. Note that you can return to ST-Link if the J-LINK software doesn’t suit you.

n PHOTO 2. This little board costs $11. You can’t buy the parts or fabricate the printed circuit board for less than that. Most everything to support this board from the firmware side is free.