Atmel SAM support

[brylant]

Hi,

I've been considering ChibiOS for my next project (mainly because of the HAL..).
Could anybody tell me what is the status of Atmel SAM (SAM E70 in particular) support (RT and HAL)..?

Thanks,

[Giovanni]

Hi,

Currently there is no support for Atmel SAM devices. RT and NIL can work without problem but HAL support is missing.

Giovanni

[tfAteba]

Hi,

I just saw the post, since november, I didn't really have the time to work on it. I'm doing a port for SAMD21E mcu.
I still have some troubles. So maybe I will need some help, any help is wellcome, it is my first port . I will be happy to share my starting point if somebody is interrested. Other wise, I will continue when I will have more time.

[brylant]

Hi Giovanni,

Thanks for the answer. Lack of HAL for SAM is not a deal breaker (although it could have been nice bonus)... I'm still going through all the docs (which by the way is really high standard).
Can I just ask if there's an easy way to "integrate" Chibi with Atmel Studio 7 (to which I'm accustomed)..?

Regards,

Adam

[barthess]

As I know Atmel Studio able Makefiles. http://www.atmel.com/webdoc/atmelstudio/ch12s01s03.html Suppose you can use ChibiOS with it.

[Giovanni]

Hi,

Download ChibiOS 2.6.x there is a demo for Atmel Studio, which I hated so it was not ported past that version, you can use that demo as an example to integrate the latest ChibiOS.

Look under \demos\ARMCM4-SAM4L

Edit: I saw barthess comment after posting, if you can use makefiles it would be much easier.

Giovanni

[brylant]

Thanks to all. I'll try and see what I can do with the Studio and ChibiOS...
And a side question: is there any chance HAL is ever going to be supported on Atmel's SAM...? So much love to ST and the SAM (which is really nice series of MCUs) is left behind )) They now have ASF4 (or Start) which is much, much better than crappy ASF3 but my skills are not really at the level to try and port anything...

[Giovanni]

Hi,

It is not matter of how nice are devices, it is matter of bandwidth, creating an HAL is a huge effort, maintenance even more. You can expect SAM devices to be supported only if some stakeholder steps up as developer and maintainer.

STM32 alone is more than enough effort for me

Giovanni

[barthess]

the SAM (which is really nice series of MCUs)

Could you shortly describe where they better than STM32? It is not trolling, I am serious.

my skills are not really at the level to try and port anything

Just try, may be it is not such hard as it looks. Start from the simplest peripheral (suppose SPI).
Some years ago I started to write I2C driver for STM32 with zero knowledge of both STM32 and I2C
and slight knowledge of C.

[brylant]

Could you shortly describe where they better than STM32? It is not trolling, I am serious.

I never said SAM are better than STM32... I just said SAM series were nice (in terms of hardware/peripherials).
main advantage (for myself and myself only) is that I have nice collection of them and I have the whole "environment" built around them (including software tools)... Everybody has their own preferences and I prefer SAM

Just try, may be it is not such hard as it looks. Start from the simplest peripheral (suppose SPI).
Some years ago I started to write I2C driver for STM32 with zero knowledge of both STM32 and I2C
and slight knowledge of C.

I certainly will try... The thing is that I'd prefer to focus on the actual project and not porting stuff (considering time constraints... I think it's enough when I say I have 5 months' old baby in the house and another full time job...)