Manage the LaunchPad MSP430 boards¶

The LaunchPad MSP430 platform includes two variants: G-series and FRAM-based MCUs.

Install¶

To install the LaunchPad MSP430 boards,

Run Energia.
Ensure the Additional boards manager URLs list includes

http://s3.amazonaws.com/energiaUS/packages/package_msp430_elf_GCC_index.json

Call the menu Tools > Boards > Boards Manager.
Select and install Energia MSP430 Boards or Energia MSP430 Boards (elf-GCC) for the LaunchPad MSP430 boards.

The Energia MSP430 Boards (elf-GCC) package offers a better management of the boards with large memory.

Install previous MSP430 package for more compact code¶

The code built with the MSP430 board package from Energia 0101E12 is more compact than the code obtained with Energia 1.6.10E18.

This is especially important for the MSP430G2553 MCU, which includes 512 bytes of RAM only. The special board LaunchPad MSP430G2553 (compact) calls the MSP430 board package from Energia 12.

To use it,

Follow the procedure Migrate Previous MSP430 Board Package to Energia 18.
Select the LaunchPad MSP430G2553 (compact) board instead of the LaunchPad MSP430G2553 board.

Install release 7.3.1 of the GCC tool-chain for MSP430¶

Release 7.3.1 of the GCC tool-chain for MSP430 allows access to the full range of FRAM.

Warning

Support for MSP GCC 7.3.1 is experimental.

Support for GCC 7.3.1 is turned off by default. To make it active,

Open the About.mk file as described in section Check and update the boards reference list.
Uncomment the line containing ENERGIA_GCC_MSP_LARGE_RELEASE.

ENERGIA_GCC_MSP_LARGE_RELEASE   = 7.3.1.24

The boards with large memory model are: MSP430FR5969 (64 kB), MSP430FR5994 (256 kB), MSP430FR6989 (128 kB), MSP430F5529 (128 kB).

For more information on the installation of release 7.3.1 of the GCC tool-chain for MSP430,

Please refer to the Read Me file on the New Compiler branch of the MSP430 core repository.

The MSP430 GCC compiler is owned by Texas Instruments and maintained by Mitto Systems since 2018.

For a description of the GCC tool-chain for MSP430,

Please refer to the pages GCC - Open Source Compiler for MSP Microcontrollers on the Texas Instruments website and Texas Instruments MSP430-GCC on the Mitto Systems website.

Develop¶

Select the tool-chain for the MSP430¶

By default, the boards with small memory use the tool-chain msp430-gcc 4.6.6, while the other boards rely on the tool-chain msp430-elf-gcc 9.2.0.50.

To force and use the tool-chain msp430-elf-gcc 9.2.0.50 for the boards with small memory,

Open the main Makefile.
Add the line

# Boards with small memory use msp430-gcc/4.6.6.
# Force msp430-elf-gcc/9.2.0.50 with
# FORCE_GCC_MSP430ELF = 1
FORCE_GCC_MSP430ELF = 1

Launch a new compilation with targets Build or All.

Upload¶

Ensure the udev rules have been installed.

Debug¶

Debugging against the MSP430 requires MSPDebug as GDB server.

To install it,

Download mspdebug-0.25
Unzip.

tar xvfz mspdebug-0.25.tar.gz

Install dependencies.

sudo apt install libusb-dev
sudo apt install libreadline-dev

Build.

cd mspdebug-0.25
make

Install.

sudo make install

For more information about MSPDebug,

Please refer to the MSPDebug website.