CHIP EFR32 Pigweed Example Application

The EFR32 example demonstrates the usage of Pigweed module functionalities in an application.

The example is based on CHIP, the Pigweed module, which is a collection of libraries that provide different functionalities for embedded systems, and the EFR32 platform.

You can use this example as a training ground for making experiments, testing Pigweed module features and checking what actions are necessary to fully integrate Pigweed in a CHIP project.

Pigweed functionalities are being gradually integrated into CHIP. Currently, the following features are available:

• Echo RPC - Creates a Remote Procedure Call server and allows sending commands through the serial port to the device, which makes echo and sends the received commands back.

• CHIP EFR32 Pigweed Example Application
  • Building the Example Application
    • To build the application, follow these steps:
  • Testing the Example Application

Building the Example Application

• Download or clone the sdk_support from GitHub $ git clone https://github.com/SiliconLabs/sdk_support.git and export the path with : $ export EFR32_SDK_ROOT=

• Download the Simplicity Commander command line tool, and ensure that commander is your shell search path. (For Mac OS X, commander is located inside Commander.app/Contents/MacOS/.)

      export PATH=/Applications/Commander.app/Contents/MacOS:$PATH
  

• Download and install a suitable ARM gcc tool chain: GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain 9-2019-q4-major

• Install some additional tools(likely already present for CHIP developers):

     # Linux
     sudo apt-get install git libwebkitgtk-1.0-0 ninja-build
  
     # Mac OS X
     brew install ninja
  

• Supported hardware:

  MG12 boards:

  • BRD4161A / SLWSTK6000B / Wireless Starter Kit / 2.4GHz@19dBm
  • BRD4163A / SLWSTK6000B / Dual band Wireless Starter Kit / 2.4GHz@19dBm, 868MHz@19dBm
  • BRD4164A / SLWSTK6000B / Dual band Wireless Starter Kit / 2.4GHz@19dBm, 915MHz@19dBm
  • BRD4166A / SLTB004A / Thunderboard Sense 2 / 2.4GHz@10dBm
  • BRD4170A / SLWSTK6000B / Multiband Wireless Starter Kit / 2.4GHz@19dBm, 915MHz@19dBm
  • BRD4304A / SLWSTK6000B / MGM12P Module / 2.4GHz@19dBm

  MG21 boards:

  • BRD4180A / SLWSTK6006A / Wireless Starter Kit / 2.4GHz@20dBm

• Build the example application:

  cd ~/connectedhomeip/examples/pigweed-app/efr32
  git submodule update --init
  source third_party/connectedhomeip/scripts/activate.sh
  export EFR32_SDK_ROOT=<path-to-silabs-sdk-v2.7>
  export EFR32_BOARD=BRD4161A
  gn gen out/debug --args="efr32_sdk_root=\"${EFR32_SDK_ROOT}\" efr32_board=\"${EFR32_BOARD}\""
  ninja -C out/debug
  

• To delete generated executable, libraries and object files use:

    cd ~/connectedhomeip/examples/pigweed-app/efr32
    rm -rf out/
  

Flashing the Application

• On the command line:

  cd ~/connectedhomeip/examples/pigweed-app/efr32
  python3 out/debug/chip-efr32-pigweed-example.flash.py
  

• With the Commander app, just load the .s37 file.

• Or with the Ozone debugger, just load the .out file.

Testing the Example Application

Determine the serial port name for the EFR device by checking /dev: ls /dev/tty*

It should look like this :
- On Linux
    /dev/ttyACM0
- On MAC
    /dev/tty.usbmodem0004401548451

Run the following command to start an interactive Python shell, where the Echo RPC commands can be invoked:

    python -m pw_hdlc.rpc_console --device /dev/tty.usbmodem0004401548451 -b 115200 $CHIP_ROOT/third_party/pigweed/repo/pw_rpc/pw_rpc_protos/echo.proto -o /tmp/pw_rpc.out

To send an Echo RPC message, type the following command, where the actual message is the text in quotation marks after the msg= phrase:

    rpcs.pw.rpc.EchoService.Echo(msg="hi")

Note: Some users might have to install the
[VCP driver](https://www.silabs.com/products/development-tools/software/usb-to-uart-bridge-vcp-drivers)
before the device shows up on `/dev/tty`.