LeafLabs Garden

A place to share, learn, and grow...

1. 

   pagercam
   Member

   As everyone knows, you can't have too many friends, too much money or enough RAM are there any plans to use/offer a Maple with more memory???

   The current processor offers 128K Flash and 20K SRAM, but there are pin compatibility variants with 512K Flash and 64K SRAM that only seem to be about $1 more than the current chip. I've seen a few posts in these forums about wanting to do things but being limited by memory. I would have already purchased a Maple but I fear that 20K RAM isn't going to be enough, so I'm looking a other boards with bigger chips.

   Posted 5 years ago #
2. 

   gbulmer
   Moderator

   Add my vote. More memory please.

   AFAIK, the top STM32F103's in a 64-pin LQFP is the STM32F103RG, with a rather luxurious 1MB flash, and a very comfy 96K RAM. But yes, 64K RAM, and 512K flash would be a noticeable improvement. I think edition 7 Unix could run in 128KB RAM on a PDP-11.

   If the Maple folks don't mind me saying, there are some low-cost boards with that 512/64 processor from ETT.co.th
   http://www.ett.co.th/product/ARM/ET-STAMP-STM32.html
   and a few others at http://www.ett.co.th/product/ARM/arm_index.htm
   But they are not as convenient to use. For example, RS232 serial boot.

   Posted 5 years ago #
3. 

   pagercam
   Member

   While I see the 1MB/96K on ST's website I can't find a distributor that sells anything over 512K/64K (STM32F103RET6 same footprint as current processor).

   Posted 5 years ago #
4. 

   gbulmer
   Moderator

   I imagine you'd have to ask for the 1M/96K parts from a main distributor, or ST.

   The press release back on February 24th:
   http://www.st.com/stonline/stappl/cms/press/news/year2010/p2478.htm

   said: "The new STM32 XL density devices are now sampling to lead customers. High-volume availability will begin from Q2 2010."

   We are a week from the end of Q2. ST may have slipped a bit, or might be there already (I have no idea how good there planning and execution are), but this may be a good time to ask for samples, and actual manufacturing timing and availability.

   To save LeafLabs some work, the 1M/96K LQFP64 parts are STM32F103RGT6/7 :-).

   Posted 5 years ago #
5. 

   okie
   Administrator

   Might anyone have an "in" and know who to contact at ST to inquire about this sort of thing? We've been sent on wild goose chases trying to find the right person to talk to or even a real person at all.

   Posted 5 years ago #
6. 

   gbulmer
   Moderator

   I'm very sorry, but no. Maybe the wild goose chase may indicate they aren't 'cooked' yet? Then again, why invoke a conspiracy theory when human frailty or organisational incompetence work just as well?

   Funnily, Atmel marketing contacted me last year, out of the blue, I think because of a questions I asked tech support. I was so suspicious I asked for proof of their identity, and contacted head of UK marketing (as one of the few people mentioned by name on the web site) just to check :-)

   Posted 5 years ago #
7. 

   okie
   Administrator

   Are you suggesting that the question you asked tech support prompted them to ask marketing to contact you or something along those lines? What was the question?

   Posted 5 years ago #
8. 

   gbulmer
   Moderator

   Just looked through my email, and it was two years ago! Time flies ...

   "Are you suggesting that the question you asked tech support prompted them to ask marketing to contact you ..."
   Yes, exactly. [Edit: I was impressed that Atmel were so 'switched on'.]

   This probably won't help, but I asked if there was an AVR32 AT32AP7000 reference implementation for Java. The documentation for the processor talked a lot about its 'hardware Java support', but I'd failed to find a Java VM, or compiler for it. (Some friends had a nifty idea for a physically small Java-based system).

   Posted 5 years ago #
9. 

   bnewbold
   Ex-Leaflabs

   Yeah! The more the merrier, we've definitely been bumping up against the RAM limit doing VGAs and audio demos.

   The Maple Native will have a high-density chip with lots of built in RAM as well as a seperate SRAM IC (probably 8megs) and an FSMC bus header for even more expansion.

   For the Maple, I think we'll switch the pin-compatible STM32 with the most RAM when we do a rev4. Not sure when that will be... we're just getting all the rev3 issues ironed out and it's kind of a hassle/risk to make changes even though it's a simple swap out. Another layer of complexity would be updating the toolchain and IDE to support multiple targets, though that shouldn't be a big deal.

   As a first step we'll try swapping in a higher memory chip onto a rev3 and play with it. I'll let you know how it goes, if you're impatient it shouldn't be unthinkable to make that modification yourself if you've got the right tools (hot air, a fine tip, and a steady hand). Not exactly a DIP socket though...

   gbulmer, those Thai boards look super similar to our Maple Native layout... great minds think alike? You can get those (or something very similar) off ebay in the states for about $65 which maybe sort of validates our current pricing ;)

   Posted 5 years ago #
10. 

    Adam
    Member

    I also vote for more RAM... I'm porting uIP stack, and thinking of porting lwIP stack too. Both would really benefit from more RAM.

    cheers
    adam
    --
    Adam Feuer

    Posted 5 years ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.