[En-Nut-Discussion] Future support for STM32

[Ulrich Prinz]

Hi Pawel,


Am 04.03.2012 19:36, schrieb Pawel Czarnecki:
> Hello Today I use board with AT91SAM7X. This was very good choice but
> for future I need something "bigger". I looked on many 
> microcontroller families and STM32F4 looks best for my requirements.
>  (btw - I compared only facts from datasheets, so maybe someone tell
> me about real weak point of this chip)

I still wait for the big STM32 board that shows all the features
including display and camera. I got an email today that they will send
me one of their training boards until the one that was booked for me
arrives.

I set on STM32 for a very complex and large project in the company, so
support and regular updates for nut/os will be available for the next 10
years probably, as we have to support the hardware we sell for this time.

> I downloaded devnut_m3n branch and I see that STM32 is partially 
> supported! The main lack at this moment is ethernet but as I see in
> configurator this is planned.

Ok, some nice SPI interface is missing, EMAC (Ethernet) is missing too,
but a colleaque is already at it.

> I noticed even the example for F4discovery board. I try to find some
> bigger board for testing than F4Discovery. As usual Olimex has good
> board in good price for this chip -
> http://olimex.com/dev/stm32-p407.html Maybe someone already ran
> Ethernut on this boards?

No, no Olimex boards on my side, just the small and big STM originals.
But qnutconf is not bundled to any board. You always may load a 'most
fitting' configuration and modify it to your needs / your board and then
run the examples.

Unfortunately F2/F4 have bigger defferences in the library compared to
F1 chips. But I saw that Uwe and others are already at it.

> The main question is: Anyone planing to officialy add STM32 support 
> to main Ethernut tree? Or maybe current STM32 support was completly 
> hobby job and we can forget about progress?
> 
No, there is a real industrial development settled on this project based
on a linux cental unit and 12..14 external sensor units based on
STM32F103/107 all running nut/os.
Several different projects are on the roadmap that are / will be based
on nut/os and STM32F20x/F40x too.

> Of course I read posts about stm32, but I cannot predict how are 
> intentions of biggest supporters of this architecture :-)

The biggest supporters are Ole and Uwe, some guys around me at the
office whose names never showed up on the mailing list, ans last not
least myself.

In case your need to identify the biggest supporters for getting help,
please still use this mailing list, even you know them now :)

Best regards
Ulrich