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Thomas edited this page Nov 17, 2019 · 60 revisions

Breakout boards and demo board are a good way for exploring µC architectures and for testing new design ideas.

The STM8 eForth binary releases contains configurations that will work for most breakout boards with STM8S and STM8L devices with at least 8K Flash:

  • CORE, MINDEV, SWIMCOM and DOUBLECOM for "STM8S Low Density" devices (e.g. STM8Sx03F3, STM8Sx03K3),
  • STM8S105K4 for "STM8S Medium Density" devices (e.g. STM8S005K6, STM8S105K6)
  • STM8S207RB for "STM8S High Density" devices
  • STM8L051F3 for "STM8L Low Density" devices (except STM8L001 and STM8L101)
  • STM8L-DISCOVERY for "STM8L Medium Density" devices (e.g. STM8L152C6)

It's easy to build other STM8 eForth configurations (e.g. serial console, I/O-support), e.g. by adding features to the CORE configuration.

Getting Started

Set aside about $4.00 for basic breakout board, an ST-Link V2 programmer, a "TTL serial interface", a mini breadboard, and some patch wires when ordering from Chinese suppliers. Keep in mind that budget delivery from China can take anywhere between 12 and 80 days and that there is some risk of loss. If want to play it safe, ordering from a local dealer may be worth the premium. Feel free to open a support ticket if you're not sure about how to get started, and need advice.

You can also start with one of the supported STM8S Value Line Gadgets, or with an STM8 Discovery board (which also provides an ST-LINK interface). For the serial console the serial interface of many Arduino boards, and USB interfaces for certain old mobile phones will also work (e.g. Siemens S35). In most cases some easy soldering will be necessary.

Programmer TTL-Serial-Interface Breadboard Patch Wires
Programmer TTL-Serial Breadboard Patch Wires
  • an STM8S103F3P6 breakout board (if not bundled with the board add some single row pin headers)
  • a cheap USB ST-Link-V2 dongle ($1.80), or any STM8S/STM32 ST Discovery Board
  • a USB to "TTL" RS232 dongle, e.g. a CH340 or a PL2303 clone ($0.50 to $0.80)
  • a solderless breadboard, e.g. 170 or 400 points ($0.40 to $1.00), and jumper wires ($0.70 to $1.10)

For testing time critical routines (e.g. interrupt driven communication) a cheap logic analyzer with Sigrok is useful.

For flashing the binary under Linux or Windows please refer to Flashing the STM8 on the STM8S Programming page.

Finally, there is a page with nice photos in Indonesian that guides the reader through using the ST-Link dongle, flashing STM8 eForth and setting up a serial console.

STM8S103F3P6 Breakout Board

For experimenting with STM8S003F3 peripherals a STM8S103F3 breakout board is a "must-have". The common $0.60 boards provide the following features:

  • STM8S103F3P6 (8K Flash, 1K RAM, 640 bytes EEPROM), no crystal
  • 4 Pin SWIM target interface (connects 1:1 to the ST-LINK SWIM connector)
  • a reset switch
  • a Micro USB connector for power supply (with 3.3V regulator, and blue or red "power LED")
  • red LED on port B5 for "blinking LED experiment"

STM8S003F3P6 breakout

Serial Interface

The MINDEV binary in the binary release bundle uses the UART port for communication:

Pin STM8S103F3P6 Port Connect to
2 PD5 serial interface "TTL" RxD
3 PD6 serial interface "TTL" TxD
7 GND serial interface "GND"

Alternatively the SWIMCOM image which provides half-duplex communication through STM8S003F3P6 pin17 (SWIM/PD1) can be used (see section Other Target-Boards).

Limitations of common STM8S103F3P6 Breakout Boards

  • for battery powered devices it might be necessary to remove the 3.3V regulator and the power LED
  • when using the 5V power supply of a Chinese ST-LINK-V2 dongle, the 3.3 V regulator on the backside of the board will overheat - only the 3.3V supply may be used!
  • when the I2C interface on ports B4 and B5 is used, the LED at B5 may have some impact on the bus

Simple Demo

The LED is mapped to bit0 of the OUT! word. A simply "blinky" for the console might look like this:

\ Blinky using the background task

: blinky 
   TIM $40 AND 0= OUT!
   ;

' blinky BG !

\ type "0 BG !" to stop the task

Please refer to STM8 eForth Programming and to STM8 eForth Background Task for your next steps. For interactive programming e4thcom is recommended.

Building MINDEV

To build STM8 eForth for this target run make BOARD=MINDEV flash.

STM8S105K4T6 Breakout Board

Breakout boards with STM8S Medium Density devices, e.g. STM8S105K4T6, are available from about $1.60. They can be used as a cheap alternative to the STM8S105C6T6 based STM8S Discovery board. Medium Density devices provide substantially more memory (and, depending on the package more GPIOs) than the Low Density STM8Sx03.

The board shown below has the following features:

  • STM8S105K4T6 (16K Flash, 2K RAM, 1K EEPROM)
  • 8MHz crystal (or 16MHz HSI)
  • 4 Pin SWIM target interface (same pin-out as the ST-LINK SWIM connector)
  • serial interface via PD5 and PD6
  • blue LED on PE5 (low active, mapped to bit0 of OUT!) [Discovery board PD0][#STM8S105K4T6 Discovery Board]
  • reset switch
  • Micro USB connector for power supply (with 3.3V regulator, red "power LED")

STM8S105K4

Note that 16K STM8S105 devices usually have full 32K Flash memory. If you use the extra memory the caveat is that there are no guarantees.

@barewires wrote about his experience with STM8EF on a similar STM8S105K4 breakout-board here.

Serial Interface

The STM8S105K4 binary in the binary release bundle uses the UART port for communication:

Pin STM8S105K4 Port Fn Connect to
13 PD5 TX serial interface "TTL" RxD
14 PD6 RX serial interface "TTL" TxD
1 GND serial interface "GND"

Building STM8S105K4

For building STM8 eForth for this target run make BOARD=STM8S105K4.

STM8S-Discovery Board

The STM8S Discovery board (manual) used to be the original STM8 target.

The board has the following features:

  • STM8S105C6T6 (32K Flash, 2K RAM, 1K EEPROM)
  • 16MHz crystal (or 16MHz HSI)
  • STLINK built in, with 4 Pin SWIM target interface
  • serial interface via PD5 and PD6
  • blue LED on PD0 (low active, mapped to bit0 of OUT!)
  • reset switch
  • Micro USB connector for power supply (with 3.3V regulator, red "power LED")
Port Fn Connect to Pin STM8S105C6 Discovery Bd
PD5 TX serial interface "TTL" RxD 46 CN4-10
PD6 RX serial interface "TTL" TxD 47 CN4-11

If you power externally (eg. from the USB-Serial adaptor), not the usb on the discovery STLink, then after programming, remove links SB1,SB2 next to SWIM connector.

Indicator LED PD0

The STM8105K4T6 Breakout board binary uses PE5 as the LED output - the OUT! can be changed easily:

    1 $5011 0 B!   \  PD0 is output in DDR
    0 $500F 0 B!   \ led ON (low)
    1 $500F 0 B!   \ led off

Redefine OUT! for Simple Demo

    : OUT! 1 $5011 0 B! 0= NEGATE $500F 0 B! ; \\redefine OUT!

Building the STM8S Discovery Binary

For building STM8 eForth for this target run make BOARD=STM8S105K4.

STM8S207RBT6 Breakout Board

A low cost (sometimes below $3.00) "STM8S207RBT6 Development Board" is available on the usual Chinese retail sites. STM8S207RBT6 is a "High-Density STM8S Performance Line" device with 128K Flash and a rich set of peripherals. The device has 6K RAM, six times as much as the RAM in an STM8S003F3, and this is plenty for STM8 eForth applications.

Since the STM8 eForth core uses 16bit addressing only the lower 32K Flash memory are directly accessible by Forth. By building extensions with "extended addressing" it's possible to use the 96K Flash memory for storing data (or for code with CALLF and JUMPF or interrupt routines).

STM8S207RBT6 Development Board

The board has the following features:

  • STM8S207RBT6 (32K+96K Flash, 6K RAM, 2K EEPROM)
  • Mini USB connector for power supply (with 3.3V regulator, red "power LED")
  • Reset switch and 4 Pin ICP header (SWIM, NRST)
  • 16MHz HSI or optional crystal (up to 24MHz)

The STM8S207RB binary from the Github Releases page works right away.

Serial Interface

The STM8S207/208 provide two UARTS. As of release 2.2.23 only UART1 is supported and used for the console:

Pin STM8S207F3P6 Port Connect to
10 PA4 UART1_RX PC: serial interface "TTL" TxD
11 PA5 UART1_TX PC: serial interface "TTL" RxD

It shouldn't be a problem to use the secondary UART3 for protocols like MODBUS, and, together with the simulated COM port, up to 3 serial connections can be used.

A Homemade STM8S003F3P6 Breakout Board

Using standard TSSOP breakout PCBs it's fairly simple to make plain STM8S003F3 boards (e.g. for experimenting with battery operation and power saving modes). At quantities of 10, a breakout board can be made with parts less than $0.60 ($0.35 at the time of writing).

Homemade STM8S003F3 Breakout

The pads on the 1.27mm TSOP side can be cut in the middle, and used as pads for soldering the capacitors. Pin 8 can be removed from the pin header to prevent short-circuiting the internal supply voltage of the µC core (Vcap).

Pin TSOP Pin STM8S003F3P6 circuit component note
17 4 NRST - VSS 100nF 0603 0805 in photo
14 7 VSS thin wire
13 8 VCAP - VSS 1µF 0603
12 9 VDD - VSS 100nF 0603 0805 in photo

For the units in the photo the following parts were used:

# Component lot of $/piece
1 STM8S003F3P6 10 0.22
1 PCB TSSOP20 10 0.09
2 100nF ceramics capacitor 0603 100 0.01
1 1uF ceramics capacitor 0603 100 0.01
0.5 40 pin 2.54mm header 10 0.03

Power Supply and ICP Programming

To program the MINDEV binary in the binary release bundle with an ST-LINK/V2 interface use the following pins:

Pin STM8S003F3P6 Port Connect to
4 NRST ST-LINK/V2 NRST
7 VSS ST-LINK/V2 GND or 0V
9 VDD ST-LINK/V2 5V or 2.9V to 5.5V
18 PD1/SWIM ST-LINK/V2 SWIM

Serial Interface

The MINDEV binary uses the UART port for communication

Pin STM8S003F3P6 Port Connect to
2 PD5 serial interface "TTL" RxD
3 PD6 serial interface "TTL" TxD
7 GND serial interface "GND"

Custom STM8 eForth board configurations can use any GPIO (or any two GPIOs on the same GPIO group) as a serial interface.

Homemade STM8S001J3M3 Breakout Board

The STM8S001J3M3 is the latest member of the STM8S low density family. As described here it behaves very much like an STM8S903x3 chip with 1 to 4 GPIOs bonded to the same pin. Out of 8 pins, 3 are used for the power supply (Vss, Vdd, and Vcap, and since NRST was sacrificed, 5 pins are connected to GPIOs.

ST provided a reference design in the form of a small breakout board.

One of the PCBs, and two STM8S001J3M3 controllers were provided for testing. Populating the breakout board is simple (2 pcs 1µF 0603 and 1 pcs 100nF 0603 are required):

stm8s001j3m3-breakout

However, it's also possible to use a standard SO8N to 8pin DIP converter PCB for experimenting with the STM8S001J3M3:

stm8s001j3m3-breakout-dip8

In order to protect the chip from short circuit, pin3 was removed from the header, and a 1µF capacitor was soldered beween the free pad of pin3 (Vcap) and pin2 (Vss). A 100nF 0603 capacitor was soldered between a copper trace to Vdd (pin4) and the SO8N pad of pin2 (Vss).

Serial Interface

It's possible to use the STM8S001J3M3 with the CORE or the MINDEV binary, but that's not recommended: as soon as pin8 operates as UART1_TX it's no longer possible to access PD1/SWIM for programming the chip.

Although it's possible to disable the UART through the console and thus regain access to PD1/SWIM the STM8S001J3.ihx binary release which uses UART1_TX in bi-directional half-duplex mode (2-wire mode) is safer option.

With the recommended 2-wire communication circuit and a good serial interface adapter (e.g. PL2303), this provides full console operation, e.g. with picocom, or e4thcom.

Pin STM8S001J3M3 Port Connect to
2 GND serial interface "GND"
8 PD1,PD5 SWIM, serial interface "TTL" RxD/TxD 

STM8 device    .      .----o serial TxD "TTL"
               .      |      (e.g. "PL2303 USB serial converter")
               .     ---
               .     / \  1N4148
               .     ---
               .      |
STM8 PD1/SWIM-->>-----*----o serial RxD "TTL"
               .
GND------------>>----------o serial GND
               .
................

It's also possible to remap UART1_TX to pad5 PA3, e.g. by using the OPT! word in the library. Note that this also maps UART1_RX to the hidden GPIO PF4. This limits the console UART options to half-duplex (e.g. using the STM8S001J3 binary).

Mapping can be done by setting the option bytes with STM8FLASH or from within Forth (e.g. by the application binary):

\ alternative function remapping STM8S001J3 "PA3 = UART_TX"

\ e4thcom directives instead of manual look-up in mcu and lib folders

\res MCU: STM8S103
\res export OPT2
#require OPT!

: OptPA3TX ( -- )   \  alternative 
   OPT2 C@ $03 OR OPT2 OPT!
   ;

With the STM8S001J3binary, executing OptPA3TX leads to the following alternative pin mapping:

Pin STM8S001J3M3 Port Connect to
2 GND serial interface "GND"
5 PA3, PB5 [UART1_TX] serial interface RxD/TxD

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