Scope
The purpose of this document is to enable the WICED community to support a new MCU device using existing WICED Wi-Fi Driver (WWD) supported in WICED Studio. It allows user to use the MCU of their choice to achieve required system performance and cost goals. Though this document describes how to use a different MCU, Cypress community provides support only on the platforms/MCUs that are officially supported in WICED Studio. To learn more about the platforms/MCUs supported in WICED Studio, please refer to the WICED Studio Technical Brief. If you need support while porting to a different MCU, we recommend you to reach out to our partners.
This document covers the porting instructions with an example of Cypress’s Wi-Fi and Bluetooth combo device CYW4343W and ST MCU STM32F469. Example leverages STM32F469-DISCO board as it has an SD card interface that makes it easy to access SDIO lines.
Disclaimer
This document assumes that you have basic understanding of WICED Studio and WICED Software Stack. The following document is a set of instructions / guidelines, which could vary based on the MCU chosen. The resultant platform files have not gone through the standard validation or testing done on platforms which are part of standard WICED Studio release.
Modifications required in WICED Studio
Steps involved in supporting a new MCU update existing files available in WICED that are used for other MCUs/Platforms.
1. Creating your own platform directory
The platform folder “CYW94343WWCD3” is placed in 43xxx_Wi-Fi/platforms as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 Platform directory
It would contain the files necessary to access the host processor peripherals, their configuration, Wi-Fi NVRAM settings, platform makefile.
a. platform.h: Declaration of GPIOs, LEDs, peripherals and corresponding IRQs are provided here. It is a good practice to first create a platform pin definitions table in platform.h. This table would map the WICED pin name to the exact pin name of the STM32 host processor. It is basically provided in commented form. For instance, the WICED pin name WICED_GPIO_1 is mapped to STM32 port pin G10 as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2 Platform pin definitions
This will help us determine the total number of WICED pins which in turn would help us to define the enum wiced_gpio_t. This enum basically contains the list of WICED pin names which would be mapped to STM32 port pins in platform.c. Likewise peripheral pins such as SPI, I2C, UART are defined using the enums wiced_spi_t, wiced_i2c_t, wiced_uart_t. The total pins to be defined must be known before defining an enum.
To allow UART terminal printing, we would need to assign the STDIO_UART used for UART standard I/O to the appropriate WICED UART pin defined above.
b. platform.c: source file describing the GPIO organization which includes the Wi-Fi control pins, strapping options, essential peripherals like debug UART initialization. Customer also needs to be careful about defining the structures specific to their peripheral requirement. They can refer to the expected structure format in existing WICED supported platforms; e.g for STM32F4xx host MCU: 43xxx_Wi-Fi/WICED/platform/MCU/STM32F4xx/peripherals/platform_mcu_peripheral.h. This structure format is also dependent on the host MCU and peripheral choice.
This is where we define the mapping of WICED pin names to the corresponding STM32 port pins as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3 GPIO pin table
Similarly, the Wi-Fi control pins and Wi-Fi SDIO pins are as shown in Figure 4
Figure 4 Wi-Fi control pins and SDIO pins
It is important to note that the WWD enums shown above have already been defined in the WWD driver and they are used during Wi-Fi initialization.
Next the WICED peripheral structure would need to be defined so that it captures all the information required for its initialization and subsequent operation. This would typically include the WICED pin names defined earlier, peripheral driver constants, register flags. The peripheral driver library is specific to a host processor, in this case, it is available in stm32f4xx.h. For instance, a typical UART peripheral is defined in Figure 5 for STM32F4XX.
Figure 5 UART peripheral configuration
As shown above, the WICED pin name WICED_UART_1 is defined above. The UART tx and rx pins have been mapped to the appropriate WICED GPIO pins defined earlier. The UART port is mapped to USART3 which is defined in stm32f4xx.h as a register address. The DMA configuration shown above was found from the TRM of STM32F469.
The hardware connections should be strictly made as per the mapping defined above.
The external devices such as LED, buttons, STDIO UART need to be initialized using the function platform_init_external_devices(). This function is called during MCU initialization.
The interrupt handler for a peripheral is defined using WWD_RTOS_DEFINE_ISR() and mapped to ISR using WWD_RTOS_MAP_ISR().
c. wifi_nvram_image.h: This is the nvram file for the WLAN module. This is supplied by the module partner. Since we are using the same Murata module used in NEB1DX_01platform, the nvram file can be interchangeably used.
d. platform_config.h: Clock configuration for the host MCU is provided here. For the host processor, the CPU clock frequency (CPU_CLOCK_HZ), crystal source (HSE_SOURCE), system clock divider constants (AHB_CLOCK_DIVIDER, APB1_CLOCK_DIVIDER, APB2_CLOCK_DIVIDER), PLL constants (PLL_SOURCE, PLL_M_CONSTANT, PLL_N_CONSTANT, PLL_P_CONSTANT, PLL_Q_CONSTANT, PLL_R_CONSTANT), system clock source (SYSTEM_CLOCK_SOURCE), systick clock source (SYSTICK_CLOCK_SOURCE), internal flash constants (INT_FLASH_WAIT_STATE, PLATFORM_STM32_VOLTAGE_2V7_TO_3V6), watchdog (DBG_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT_MULTIPLIER) are used for configuring the host STM32F469. For the STM32F469 MCU, STM32CubeMX (https://www.st.com/en/development-tools/stm32cubemx.htmlSTM32CubeMX - STM32Cube initialization code generator - STMicroelectronics ) software was used. Using the STM32CubeMX tool, customers can select the target host MCU and the peripherals required for their use-case. The interactive tool also provides the option to correctly configure the clock based on the clock configuration in STM32CubeMX. The macros for Wi-Fi options WICED_WIFI_USE_GPIO_FOR_BOOTSTRAP_1, WICED_WIFI_OOB_IRQ_GPIO_PIN, WICED_USE_WIFI_POWER_PIN, WICED_USE_WIFI_32K_CLOCK_MCO and WICED_USE_WIFI_POWER_PIN_ACTIVE_HIGH need to be correctly defined as they would be used during WICED initialization. Please make sure to remove or comment out USES_RESOURCE_FILESYSTEM macro as we are putting all the resources in internal flash.
e. <platform_name>.mk: This is the platform makefile which contains information on the WLAN chip and host processor as well as Wi-Fi bus interface used which is SDIO for this module. Since the internal flash is enough to accommodate both Wi-Fi FW and clm blob, we have treated the memory resources as DIRECT RESOURCES (RESOURCES_LOCATION?= RESOURCES_IN_DIRECT_RESOURCES) which will build the WLAN FW and CLM blob along with the main application and put it in internal flash. The HSE_VALUE is the external crystal frequency used for clocking the host processor which is 8 MHz.
Creating these platform files require thorough knowledge of the host MCU. It is strongly advised to go through the datasheet and Technical Reference Manual (TRM) of the host MCU first.
We have interfaced the STM32F469 MCU to the Murata Type1DX through SDIO interface for which platform files should provide the correct pin mapping. To ease up the debugging, one UART port was used for which the DMA configuration, correct clock configuration, crystal selection, PLL settings need to be taken care of in platform files.
Essential points:
a. Wi-Fi control pins: These pins are used during initialization of WICED (43xxx_Wi-Fi/WICED/platform/MCU/wwd_platform_separate_mcu.c); hence the created platform file(s) should mention these pins.
b. Wi-Fi SDIO bus pins: For 4-bit SDIO transfer, data transfer lines (D0-D3), SDIO_CMD, SDIO_CLK along with the provision for OOB_IRQ should be provided in the platform definition. (43xxx_Wi-Fi/WICED/platform/MCU/STM32F4xx/WWD/wwd_SDIO.c).
Points to Check:
If the UART port is not working as expected, check the HW pins, PLL settings, crystal selection made in platform.config.h. To understand the clock organization better, the user can check-out 43xxx_Wi-Fi/WICED/platform/MCU/STM32F4xx/peripherals/libraries/system_stm32f4xx.c.
2. Creating the Memory map
The memory map for the host MCU can be generally found in 43xxx_Wi-Fi/WICED/platform/MCU/STM32F4xx/GCC as shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6 Memory map STM32F469
The user can create their own linker-script based on the memory organization of the host MCU. (STM32CubeMx software can be used to check the memory organization, but proper modification to the linker script is up-to user’s competence).
3. Modifying the common platform structure
The user must add the number of UART ports, number of SPI ports (if used) etc. for the target platform in 43xxx_Wi-Fi/WICED/platform/MCU/STM32F4xx/peripherals/platform_mcu_peripheral.h.
The number of flash sectors for the host MCU need to be specified separately as well in 43xxx_Wi-Fi/WICED/platform/MCU/STM32F4xx/WAF directory. The macro PLATFORM_APP_END_SECTOR needs to be defined because it would be used during the process of loading a new program and DCT into internal flash. For STM32F469, the macro was defined as per the information specified in the TRM.
As the source files for STM32F4xx series is already present in WICED Studio, we have enabled the platform_name macro (STM32F469_479xx) in 43xxx_Wi-Fi/WICED/platform/MCU/STM32F4xx/peripherals/libraries/stm32f4xx.h.
TP1: At this point, the compilation with WICED build system should pass for the created platform. The build statement should be snip.<test_basic>-<platform_name>
4. Adding the SDIO interface
If the compilation is successful, you can build and download scan application using snip.scan-CYW94343WWCD3 download run. We did not use download_apps in the build statement because we have placed our resources including WLAN firmware and CLM blob in internal flash memory. If you have used ST-Link, you can refer to the post Adding ST-Link support in WICED to enable ST-Link support in WICED. After the programming is successful, you can check the UART terminal output. If the terminal does not print the WLAN MAC address, WLAN firmware and WLAN CLM details, it means that WLAN interface was not initialised. A typical scenario is as shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7 WLAN interface not working
Check where the execution is getting stuck. You can enable the macro WPRINT_ENABLE_WWD_DEBUG to enable WWD debug prints. If SDIO bus does not initialize (check comment in WWD), make sure WL_REG_ON pin on the Murata module is connected to the pin defined by the index WWD_PIN_POWER in platform.c. Check SDIO clock control register for further debugging. Use SLOW_SDIO_CLK and SDIO_1_BIT in <platform_name>.mk file.
If it is stuck at waiting on HT clock, the LPO has not been configured correctly. The LPO_IN pin needs to be connected to external source defined by the index WWD_PIN_32K_CLK defined in platform.c.
If you are getting stuck in F2, FIFO underflow could be a probable cause. Check the SDIO_STA (interrupt status) register to debug the issue. You can check wwd_sdio.c and wwd_bus_protocol.c. You can consider disabling the interrupt received flag SDIO_MASK_SDIOITIE from the SDIO mask register in STM32F4xx/WWD/wwd_sdio.c. In that case, the function wwd_bus_packet_available_to_read() would have to be commented out because this function would check for interrupt by reading the IntStatus register of the WLAN chip.
The patch file “WWD_changes.patch” contains the specific changes made to WWD driver discussed above which can be applied.
Test & Debug
a. Debugging and testing the SDIO interface
The WWD contains debug prints to indicate error or failure in function execution inside WWD. To enable WWD debugging, go to wiced_defaults.h and enable the following macros:
#define WPRINT_ENABLE_WWD_INFO /* Wiced Wi-Fi Driver prints */
#define WPRINT_ENABLE_WWD_DEBUG
#define WPRINT_ENABLE_WWD_ERROR
Whenever the host processor needs to initialize or access the WLAN interface, it uses the SDIO interface and SDIO packets are transmitted/received across the interface. It is possible to evaluate the WWD and SDIO bus TX/RX statistics at any WWD function call to understand if there were any issues in the WWD and SDIO bus transactions. It basically provides us two types of statistics:
WWD Stats: This is encapsulated in the structure wwd_stats_t and it captures the TX/RX stats at WWD driver.
typedef struct
{
uint32_t tx_total; /* Total number of TX packets sent from WWD */
uint32_t rx_total; /* Total number of RX packets received at WWD */
uint32_t tx_no_mem; /* Number of times WWD could not send due to no buffer */
uint32_t rx_no_mem; /* Number of times WWD could not receive due to no buffer */
uint32_t tx_fail; /* Number of times TX packet failed */
uint32_t no_credit; /* Number of times WWD could not send due to no credit */
uint32_t flow_control; /* Number of times WWD Flow control is enabled */
} wwd_stats_t;
Bus stats: This is encapsulated in the structure wwd_bus_stats_t and it contains information on SDIO TX/RX packet stats at the interface.
typedef struct
{
uint32_t cmd52; /* Number of cmd52 reads/writes issued */
uint32_t cmd53_read; /* Number of cmd53 reads */
uint32_t cmd53_write; /* Number of cmd53 writes */
uint32_t cmd52_fail; /* Number of cmd52 read/write fails */
uint32_t cmd53_read_fail; /* Number of cmd53 read fails */
uint32_t cmd53_write_fail; /* Number of cmd53 write fails */
uint32_t oob_intrs; /* Number of OOB interrupts generated by wlan chip */
uint32_t sdio_intrs; /* Number of SDIO interrupts generated by wlan chip */
uint32_t error_intrs; /* Number of SDIO error interrupts generated by wlan chip */
uint32_t read_aborts; /* Number of times read aborts are called */
} wwd_bus_stats_t;
The function wwd_print_stats ( wiced_bool_t reset_after_print ) evaluates the WWD packet stats and SDIO bus stats at the interface. To enable this function, enable the macro WWD_ENABLE_STATS in wiced_defaults.h. As an example, the wwd_print_stats(WICED_FALSE) is called inside SDIO/wwd_bus_protocol.c after WLAN firmware download wwd_bus_sdio_download_firmware( ) and before waiting for F2 to be ready.
Figure 8 Testing WWD stats
The results are shown below:
Working interface
WWD Stats..
tx_total:0, rx_total:0, tx_no_mem:0, rx_no_mem:0
tx_fail:0, no_credit:0, flow_control:0
Bus Stats..
cmd52:151, cmd53_read:0, cmd53_write:29
cmd52_fail:0, cmd53_read_fail:0, cmd53_write_fail:0
oob_intrs:0, sdio_intrs:151, error_intrs:0, read_aborts:0
Non-working interface
WWD Stats..
tx_total:0, rx_total:0, tx_no_mem:0, rx_no_mem:0
tx_fail:0, no_credit:0, flow_control:0
Bus Stats..
cmd52:151, cmd53_read:0, cmd53_write:29
cmd52_fail:0, cmd53_read_fail:0, cmd53_write_fail:0
oob_intrs:0, sdio_intrs:30, error_intrs:0, read_aborts:0
We can see that in a non-working interface, the number of sdio_intrs is far less than those in a working interface. So basically, the WWD packet stats would help us in characterizing the SDIO interface.
b. Testing i-perf statistics
To test the network performance of the added platform, a basic i-perf throughput test was done in normal environment between the WICED platform and a WIN 10 PC. The WIN 10 PC was set up as TCP server and the test.iperf_app was used to set up a TCP client in the WICED side (WICED board TX and PC is the RX here).
PC Side:
Run the command prompt in the i-perf directory and use the following command
iperf -s -w 655k
WICED Setup:
Build and download the test.iperf_app with the following packet pools settings in the iperf_app.mk
GLOBAL_DEFINES := TX_PACKET_POOL_SIZE=200 RX_PACKET_POOL_SIZE=200
GLOBAL_DEFINES += PBUF_POOL_TX_SIZE=100 PBUF_POOL_RX_SIZE=100
GLOBAL_DEFINES := WICED_TCP_WINDOW_SIZE=65535
iperf -c <ip_address of server> -w 655k
The throughput number we achieved for TCP client-server architecture is 5.66 Mbits/sec as shown in Figure 9.
Figure 9 I-Perf throughput
The help article for iperf set-up in WICED platform can be found at 43xxx_Wi-Fi/apps/test/iperf_app/README-Iperf.pdf.
General bringup issues
HT Avail Timeout
- Caused due to wrong nvram.txt or the firmware.
- Check the firmware matches the chip revision.
- Check the LPO_IN connection.
Interrupt's not working/IOCTL timeout
- Disable OOB and try with in band interrupt first.
- For OOB, make sure that the GPIO number is provided correctly
Throughput Issues
- Check whether we have enough bus level throughput.
- Check whether the connection is made with proper capability. [11ac, 11n..80MHz, 40MHz etc]
- Open air congestion might be a problem. Try it in a RF chamber.
- Check the operating rate [wl rate].
- Check the rssi value to see whether Antenna is proper [wl rssi].