Clone Chinese board (STM32G030)

[macarion]

Hola,
I just finish my prototype with this STM32G030C8T6 board



The board it's too big, I only need few GPIOS and get rid of the LDO, USB and that, as I have the official Schematic, I'm going to try to make my own small board design just matching exactly the same components

First question I have is do I need to upload previously some kind of bootloader or configurarion? I already did this with an ESP32 module and was just solder, upload my sketch and working, I wonder if this STM32 will going to work the same.

Another question it's about the EEPROM AT24C04 chip I see in the Schemathic, I thought the STM32 already incorporated internal memory so I'm not sure if this is necessary or what is the purpose of this

[ag123]

stm32g030 don't do usb, hence the options are using serial upload or st-link swd.
hence a 'bootloader' won't make sense after all.

you would need your own st-link dongle or a usb-uart dongle to update firmware with this one. that 'extra' chip, is a 'feature' if after all the vendor provides it, e.g. that the vendor soldered an additional eeprom on board.

for stm32g030 (f6p6), i'd prefer to simply buy the chip
https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale- ... 0f6p6.html
and solder them on 'adapter boards'
https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale- ... apter.html
in that way you can decide how you want to use the pins.
stm32g030 f6p6 vs stm32g030 c8t6 has one feature in common
both of them has 8 kb sram, it is pretty cram if you like.
the only slightly better things in the c8 is more pins 48 pins and c8 has 64k flash

in case you are curious about the g030 f6p6, an AFIO mapping is here, for the bare f6p6 sop20 chip
viewtopic.php?t=1848&start=10

[macarion]

So many thanks mate for you reply

So the chip it's already configured and programed from factory and just I need to upload my sketch with st-link, great

About the eeprom, sorry but I still don't understand, I'm going to need to read/store few bytes in eeprom on runtime operation, Do I need that eeprom chip or it's just additional stuff and the chip already has this feature? I see the chip has 64 Kb of embedded flash memory but now I wonder if that it's only for code/sketch and not for user data

[ag123]

normally, the eeprom 'isn't there', but that if the vendor puts it on the board, you can probably use it.
as it seemed it is connected at i2c1, as for the i2c address, you would either need to consult the specs/manual for the eeprom or probably use some 'i2c scanner' sketch to probe for it. probably, 1st look in the manual for the eeprom to understand the specifics, then a i2c 'scanner' can probably probe and you can see if the address conform with that given in the specs for the eeprom.

[macarion]

normally, the eeprom 'isn't there', but that if the vendor puts it on the board, you can probably use it.
as it seemed it is connected at i2c1, as for the i2c address, you would either need to consult the specs/manual for the eeprom or probably use some 'i2c scanner' sketch to probe for it. probably, 1st look in the manual for the eeprom to understand the specifics, then a i2c 'scanner' can probably probe and you can see if the address conform with that given in the specs for the eeprom.

Sorry, my fault, I meant to say if g030 has the ability to store user data in embedded flash (in order to remove the AT24C04 from the design) or that embedded flash it's only for code/sketch

[ag123]

for the 'embedded flash', the 'simplest' way, put it in code build it get the 'bin' file, that is the binary firmware image.
use st-link, usb-uart etc to 'install' it on the device, one can even 'click upload' in the Arduino ide

the harder way, 1st there is the ref manual rm0454 ref manual STM32G0x0 advanced Arm®-based 32-bit MCUs
https://www.st.com/resource/en/referenc ... ronics.pdf
chapter 3 Embedded Flash memory (FLASH)
^ normally, I'd go for this 1st, understand how it works, it is also possible to directly access registers and update flash.
but understanding it is key (even if you don't do register access).

and there is the EEPROM library (in the core)
https://github.com/stm32duino/Arduino_C ... /Libraries
https://github.com/stm32duino/Arduino_C ... ies/EEPROM

[macarion]

Thank you, all clear