Hi, I like Studio v4 and I'm sure it'll evolve to be even better.  While I've been able to connect to and program my C8051F930 demo board, I cannot get Studio v4 to recognise my 4455CLED-434 cards. It recognises the toolsticks ok, but not the EZRadio boards. Is this something that Silabs are still working on? Is there a work-around involving WDS3? Or is it something I've overlooked?

Hello to anyone still following this thread... it's been a while, and I've finally come back to investigate further why no life on the SDO pin of the si4455.  To recap, I'm trying to couple it with a PIC16F1828 or similar, and adapting C code from examples. In the last 8 months, Microchip have released and updated their Code Configurator which makes altering peripheral settings really easy. I also discovered something I should have known but overlooked - there are 4 possible settings for SPI modes. According to the si4455 datasheet, the chip expects clock polarity idle low, active high, and clock edge idle to active (positive edge, from the diagrams). Sampling of the data should be mid-data. This corresponds to SPI mode 0, but with these settings there is no joy in si4455 land. Changing it to clock edge active to idle, the chip starts to respond! Deep joy!  The settings in Microchip's MCC seem to carry through to the code correctly (MCC is still in development), and the registers of the 16F1828 seem to correspond to what MCC says, and although this seems contrary to the si4455 data sheet, it seems to work and at last I'm seeing activity on the chip's SDO line.  It's early days and I've a long way to go before I can make it transmit and recieve as I wish, but it's a major step forward. Incidentally, the si4455 seems fairly bullet-oroof, as at one stage I found a dry joint on my adaptor board feeding Vcc, so the chip was powering through its data pins... it has survived! Well done Si!

Still no joy, the chip returns 0xff to everything because the SPI out from the 4455 isn't being activated.  Can't do more until I'm back from abroad in 2 weeks.

John

 Hi all, I'm new to Si wireless so please be kind...

I'm trying to configure a Si4455 on an RF Solutions Zeta board. It's marked 455A, so it should be a B1 version chip, and I want to drive it from a PIC 16F1828 - heresy, but I don't want to learn Keil C and C8051F930 from scratch, and I'm reasonably ok with XC8.  Using WDS3 (GUI Version 3.2.9.0 to be precise) I have extracted the radio config file and set up an array, all as per AN^(2, and the Si4455 data sheet, and the Rev B API documentation.  But it will not load the configuration.  I know it can be done as people have written so in other posts, but how?

I have found that the reset seems ok, CTS and nIRQ go high, but when it attempts to load the config array nIRQ goes low and will not go high again.  It may be that the chip doesn't properly enter EZConfig mode, so what am I doing wrongly?  How critical is the SDN high period?  In various documentation I've seen from10 uS to 300uS?  I want to use XC*'s delay routines as my MCU clock isn't the same as the C8051's, and I agree with the todo comments in the source (a better delay timer needed). I wait for CTS to go high, and send the array, the first item being the power-up.

Anyway, specifically:

What's the correct SDN high period?

What's the correct power-up sequence?  The AN's don't really tally with the sequence in the config.h file, which put int control enable, frr and eztune  before the ezconfig array?

Please help if you can!

Thanks Tamás, certainly the AN's need updating - for instance the Si4455 -2WayLink Demo information states that the radio chip is revision B1A, but WDS shows it as C2.  The AN's for revisions B1 and C2 show the top markings as "455A" for both types too, so the only way to tell would be to do a partial info.  

However, getting the B1 versions to do anything at all until it's booted up is near impossible :-(  it's a bit chicken and egg.

So does this mean there's a new Si4455 revision on the way with all the patches built in?  If so, I hope its top marking isn't 455A...

John

AN633 explains you apply the patch after reset and before power-up. There's mention of an apply patch function but it doesn't appear in any files generated by the IDE. WDS generates the si446x_patch.h file, 56 rows of 9 bytes, first byte always 0x08 which must be length. I've tried waiting for gpi01 then sending 8 bytes at a time and waiting each time for gpi01, but it freezes up after the first row waiting for gpi01 to go high again.  So what's the correct method?

I'm seeing the same effect, and I'm trying to port the RF solutions example code to a different PIC chip using 'C' and in-line assembler.  I can see the CTS line (on GPI01) toggling happily, but never see anything on the SDO line.  Tried 3 different Zetas all the same so I don't think I've blown one up.  I think it's that the Zeta isn't fully awake, although as I say the CTS line does toggle.  That's down to it understanding what you send it I suppose. However without the SDO line working it's not going to be much of a transceiver!  If you get anywhere, please let me know.