STM32F3Discovery - can I upgrade the ST-LINK to V2-1 to have Virtual Com?

[Bogdan Golab]

Posted on June 14, 2016 at 21:24

Hi,

I noticed that STM32F3 has PC4 and PC5 connected to ST-LINK USART (or at least a bridge needs to be soldered). I wonder if I can upgrade the standard F3Discovery firmware (V2) to version V2-1 which support Virtual Com. I like VCOM feature which is available by default on nucleo boards running V2-1 ST-link firmware. Thanks, Bogdan

[Tesla DeLorean]

Posted on June 14, 2016 at 22:16

I believe that it needs a more powerful F103 part. You can use the SWV channel

[Bogdan Golab]

Posted on June 14, 2016 at 22:48 Thank you for your comment. Nucleo boards use stm32f103CB whereas the STM32F3Discovery uses stm32f103C8. Both are very similar - I see no performance differences. Also the have the same capabilities. I seems that both nucleo and F3Discoveru use almost the same MCU for st-link.

[Tesla DeLorean]

Posted on June 14, 2016 at 23:32

Except one has 64KB FLASH, and the other has 128KB FLASH, perhaps that's the issue. Either way, the devices support mbed are different than those originally on the DISCO boards. Some of the newer DISC1 and DISCO boards support mbed and VCP

[Bogdan Golab]

Posted on June 15, 2016 at 07:40

Perfect explanation!

Thank you!

[Bogdan Golab]

Posted on July 03, 2016 at 10:53

I noticed that new version of STM32F429IDiscovery can emulate the virtual com and has stm32f103C8 as ST-LINK MCU (the one with smaller flash).

It uses ST-LINK/V2-B. It seems that stm32f103C8 can run a kind of firmware supporting VCOM. Unforunately I cannot find any details what is the ST-LINK/V2-B (is this only a matter of firmware or something in the HW as well)

[Bogdan Golab]

Posted on July 03, 2016 at 11:07

My fault. When I compared hw changes I found:

''Rev C.01 STM32F103C8T6 replaced by STM32F103CBT6, ST-LINK/V2-B'' So it seems that my previous ''discover'' was false and STM32F103CBT6 is required to have VCOM also for ST-LINK/V2-B