FRAM Dev Kit MSP-EXP430FR5739 Review

There has been a lot of buzz and stories going around about the first micro to have FRAM (Ferroelectric memory). FRAM has been talk about it not only here on DesignSpark but on element14 and was commented about on The Amp Hour. But what is it and how good is the development kit?

Well FRAM is normal RAM not unlike DRAM but uses a ferroelectric layer in place of a dielectric. What dose that mean? not a lot to me other than this is RAM that is non-volatile, so its like FLASH without the programming. This makes it quick to write to and the data will not be lost when the power goes off.

The FRAM development kit from Texas Instruments clam to be boldly going where no microcontroller has gone before. Unfortunately I found this to be true - why? Well lets follow the bumpy ride of getting this kit up and running shall we!

The kit comes is a nice box and is supplied with a USB cable and some extra connectors should you need them. The board is also pre-programmed with four demos to show off the FRAM features. Powering the board up is simply connecting the USB connector to your PC and away you go - no drivers needed all plug and play.

The demos are accessed by pressing the buttons on the edge of the PCB. I soon found that the rubber feed for the board were placed so far in from the edge that when pressing the buttons the board would skip around like a tiddly-wink unless the hold it down with your other hand! I mean come one TI did no one notice this.!?

The first demo shows a row of LEDs light up that every time 100Kb has been written to FRAM. This very unexciting example quickly becomes nothing more than flashing LEDs. So it can write at RAM speeds - flashing LEDs not selling it to me, specification does.

The second demo which gets boring in about three seconds shows a low power mode or comparison of the speed you would write to FLASH. Blink.... long pause... blink... ok thats that one done thanks.

The third example of the on-board accelerometer and moving LEDs in my view show nothing to do with FRAM other than it tells you its storing the results - wow. And lastly the temperature sensor demo is the same other than I notice the poor noise rejection on the circuit causes the LEDs to flicker as the bar graph goes up with your finger on it.

So having completed the demos in a few seconds I looked for the CD, oh there is not one - OK off to the website then. The quick guide that is included tells me there is a GUI program I can run and see the results of the FRAM writes and speed. I was silly enough to think these would be on the suggest www.ti.com/FRAM link but found nothing at all. In fact I ended up hunting around the TI forums and was shocked to find other users trying to find it also. In one post a TI support person did post the ZIP file but it is poor that at the time you could not find the files quickly. In fact the semi-cryptic website page your linked to is only about FRAM and you have to follow a link the the Development board where you can find the files you want. Not totally clear at first!

So I downloaded and installed the GUI and I would love to tell you it has added to my experience but it has not - because it did not run on my laptop, or my PC at home, or the other PC I have so you will have to take it from TI that its worth waiting for and will be interested to see what others think.

So now I have got tired with the demo’s I looked to program it. TI like another chip manufacture have chosen not to supply an IDE so you will have to wonder off to a site like IAR to get an IDE and then find a compiler. This is not clear for new people to TI so can be a bit confusing and also very troublesome in finding the right stuff to download. This issues can be that one site states a version and time has moved on since it was posted and you can’t find it or you needs tweaks. So I have to say for a review point of view I really do not have time to find and download these tools and read forum posts trying to fix issues. I’m not alone either as I have talked to a number of engineers who all hate this lack of support route and third party cobbles and just don’t use the chips at all. TI please get a IDE together if you want people interested in picking up your chips or make it so blinding simple to find and download a total novice can do it.

In all I’m sorry to say that I will not be using this dev kit again. I did pass back comments to TI who seamed unmoved with my issues and feel that they have done enough. Well this kit is only $29 so how much support (excluding the forum and users god bless them) would you expect for that?

I’m impressed with the details of FRAM and what we can do with it but I’ll be waiting till its available with a manufacture like Microchip.

Thanks
Paul ( @monpjc )