Description

This application note discusses the hardware and firmware implementation details of interfacing an external system (application) microcontroller to the Dolphin chipset. The system microcontroller performs all the application and system level tasks and is needed to set up the operation of the Dolphin chipset.

Texas Instruments has developed evaluation software that interfaces to the Dolphin chipset through hardware UART interface of the DBB03A digital baseband ASIC. However in real end applications, an external system microcontroller is needed to emulate the features of the Dolphin evaluation software. This evaluation software was purely developed for demo purposes. Any catalog low-cost microcontroller can be interfaced to the Dolphin chipset as long as they follow the Dolphin host interface protocol (SWRA043) for communication.

Texas Instruments recommends its ultra-low power MSP430 series of microcontrollers to interface with Dolphin. Specifically the firmware in this application note was developed for MSP430F1121A microcontroller.