New STM32F42X/43X Devices

[Abhishek]

Hi,

I just saw on ST's website - they announced some new F4 Devices.

Most impresive features:
6! SPIs
1MB / 2MB Flash memory
256 KB (+ 4 KB backup) SRAM

Other than that, I didn't find any significant differences. They have also moved the Flash programming manual to the reference manual itself. Let's see when the official announcement comes.

Looks like they'll provide plenty of juice for high-power applications!

[Giovanni]

Interesting, 2 more UARTs too and a minor improvement to the I2C (it is not the new I2C found in the F0, just a small upgrade).

It should be largely compatible with existing drivers. I hope they will create discovery boards with them.

Giovanni

[Abhishek]

They are officially announced on site:

http://www.st.com/internet/com/press_release/p3357.jsp

[mabl]

I love the "high resolution photo" from marketing

[rui]

The marketing photo has 64pins, but, the STM32F42X/43X has no 64pin package !

[Tectu]

Hmm... Since I work with displays and graphics, I am mostly interested into more RAM. 256k seems to be quite nice
I am wondering how long it will take until we can make frame buffering inside the MCUs main RAM.


~ Tectu

[Giovanni]

True, 256K would also allow a decent VGA resolution using DMA/timers for output.

Giovanni

[Tectu]

Indeed. The reason why there aren't any VGA drivers for ChibiOS/GFX yet is because of the lacking memory. We'd need a universal external memory interface first. But I didn't find time yet to bother around with that.


~ Tectu

[Giovanni]

I saw a project that generated video output using the SD peripheral and few external resistors. I imagine it could become a general driver now that a large frame buffer is available.
A single STM32F4 would be powerful enough to implement a lot of classic video games. Imagine a C64 simulator on a discovery

Edit: found it.

ubb-vga-schem.png (36.36 KiB) Viewed 4808 times

Giovanni

[Tectu]

It's indeed possible. Displaying a picture is really no problem. The VGA driver for ChibiOS/GFX can be written and used without any problems. It's just not possible to read back a pixel. Therefore fancy stuff like scrolling won't be available.

Code: Select all

#define GDISP_DRIVER_NAME            "VGA"
#define GDISP_LLD(x)               gdisp_lld_##x##_VGA

#define GDISP_HARDWARE_CLEARS         FALSE
#define GDISP_HARDWARE_FILLS                 FALSE
#define GDISP_HARDWARE_BITFILLS         FALSE
#define GDISP_HARDWARE_SCROLL         FALSE
#define GDISP_HARDWARE_PIXELREAD              FALSE
#define GDISP_HARDWARE_CONTROL         FALSE

#define GDISP_PIXELFORMAT            GDISP_PIXELFORMAT_RGB565


~ Tectu