STM32H573 - Combining ST67W and Ethernet support?

[dmarks-ls]

We are developing a new board based on the STM32H573.  We want to incorporate both Wi-Fi and BLE support, so adding the ST67W611M1 seems a logical fit.  Digging into CubeMX, it appears that the ST67W relies on a FreeRTOS + lwIP solution, at least for the T02 architecture.  (I would prefer not to use the T01 architecture, as it’s considerably more flexible to have the lwIP API in the host MCU.)  However, we also want to incorporate Ethernet support, and if one wants an out-of-the-Cube(MX) solution for Ethernet, all the provided examples are for ThreadX + NetX Duo.  We recently completed a design with the H563 and Ethernet using ThreadX and NetX Duo, so I’m familiar with that solution.

I did see the post about using STM32H5 with lwIP, so I know it’s something that can be done.  Is using FreeRTOS + lwIP the best solution for supporting both Ethernet and Wi-Fi on STM32, since there doesn’t seem to be an out-of-the-box solution for Wi-Fi using ThreadX + NetX Duo?  FWIW, I don’t need to have both the Wi-Fi and Ethernet interfaces running simultaneously, but it would be pretty neat if I could do that.  Otherwise, at startup I would just enable one interface or the other.

Dana M.

 

[EPASZ.1]

Technically, it is feasible to use the ST67W611M1 module with ThreadX + NetX Duo - the module itself does not see what FW is running on the host, of course. By generating a project with the “default” configuration, deleting the LwIP and FreeRTOS parts and porting mainly the netif layer, you should be able to connect your ThreadX application.

As you say, there is no official tutorial or example on this, so the only way is manually “merging” two projects (one with ThreadX and the other FreeRTOS configuration).

Of course, starting with ST67 and FreeRTOS+LwIP and adding Ethernet to that is also viable.

[MStackDev_376]

Hi,

 

If you’re looking for a simpler solution that avoids lwIP, ThreadX or NetX Duo, you can take a look at the Mongoose Networking Library.

 

It’s a lightweight library for embedded devices (running its own TCP/IP stack and its own Ethernet driver) and it can be easily integrated into most STM32-based projects.

 

For H573, there is an example here of a baremetal project using Ethernet. You can check that project and easily adapt it to your use cases. Mongoose works well with FreeRTOS as well, with an example available here. This should give you a solid starting point for the Ethernet side of your project.

 

As for Wi-Fi, Mongoose can work with the ST67W611M1 module (T02 architecture). Currently, we only provide an example for the NUCLEO-U5A5ZJ board, but it can work with any other STM32 device using the same Wi-Fi module, provided the low-level SPI transport functions are implemented. There's no need for lwIP or NetX Duo. Mongoose handles the networking stack and can run on both bare-metal and FreeRTOS projects.

 

We don't have an H573 implementation of those functions yet, but adapting the U5A5 example to work on H573 can be done in theory without much effort.

 

Heads up: I’m part of the Mongoose development team, I hope this gives you a good starting point.