PHY Configuration

Each PHY on the CC13xx and CC26xx is configured by a combination of

1. A Setup radio operation command,
2. RF core firmware patches,
3. RF core register overrides.

All these settings are generated using SysConfig (SmartRF Studio can also be used). This section explains the necessary basics for understanding these files and for making minor tweaks.

When using the RF driver, all 3 parts, the setup command, patches and overrides are used as parameters for RF_open():

RF_open(&rfObject, &RF_prop, (RF_RadioSetup*)&RF_cmdPropRadioDivSetup, NULL);

Read more on setting up the RF core:

• SimpleLink Academy: Exporting RF settings from SmartRF Studio
• RF driver documentation

Setup Command

The setup command is the first radio operation that is posted to the RF core after power-up. Each PHY has its own flavored command. Usually, it programs basic configuration parameters like the modulation format and the symbol rate.

For the proprietary PHY, for instance, two different setup commands exist:

• CMD_PROP_RADIO_SETUP can only be used when operating at 2.4 GHz as it does not contains the frequency divider setting needed for the sub-1 GHz band.
• CMD_PROP_RADIO_DIV_SETUP must be used when operating in the Sub-1 GHz band, and can be used when operating on the 2.4 GHz band.

The relationship of both commands is shown in the following image.

Patches

Patches are additions to the RF core firmware. The CC13xx and CC26xx family is shipped with a RF core firmware in ROM. Whenever an issue is observed, additional features are added or a new chip revision is published, some firmware changes might become necessary. Patches are provided as binary blob for the CPE, MCE and the RFE. They are part of the device-specific content in the SimpleLink CC13xx/CC26xx SDK. Patches are loaded into the RF core RAM when powering up the RF core. The RF driver combines pointers to all patches in a structure called RF_Mode, for instance:

RF_Mode RF_prop =
{
    // ...
    .cpePatchFxn = &rf_patch_cpe_genfsk,    // Command and Packet Engine
    .mcePatchFxn = 0,                       // Modem Control Engine
    .rfePatchFxn = &rf_patch_rfe_genfsk,    // Radio Front-end Engine
    // ...
};

The table below give a brief overview over the patches for CC13xx and when and how they are used.

For the patches where it’s referred to SmartRF Studio in the table below, do a code export to see the usage.

Table 4. Patch overview

Patch	Short description	Link to further documentation
rf_patch_cpe_bt5	CPE patch for BLE	Use the provided examples and settings from the SDK
rf_patch_cpe_ieee_802_15_4	CPE patch for Zigbee	Use the provided examples and settings from the SDK
rf_patch_cpe_multi_bt5_coex	CPE patch for BLE co-existence	Please see Coexistence for details
rf_patch_cpe_multi_protocol	CPE patch for the RF driver	See DMM examples. This patch is used if more than one protocol is used
rf_patch_cpe_multi_protocol_rtls	CPE patch for the RF driver	See DMM examples. This patch is used if more than one protocol is used and RTLS is used
rf_patch_cpe_prop	CPE patch for the RF driver	Use the provided examples and settings. Look for settings with FSK in the name in SmartRF Studio
rf_patch_mce_genook	MCE patch to support OOK.	Use the provided examples and settings. Look for settings with OOK in the name in SmartRF Studio
rf_patch_mce_iqdump	MCE patch to dump IQ samples	More information regarding this patch could be found in CC13xx IQ Samples
rf_patch_mce_wb_dsss	MCE patch to support WB DSSS	More information regarding this patch could be found in Wide-Band DSSS Mode
rf_patch_mce_wmbus_ctmode	MCE patch to support wmbus. Combined C and T-Mode	Use the provided examples and settings. Look for settings with WMBUS in the name in SmartRF Studio
rf_patch_mce_wmbus_smode	MCE patch to support wmbus. S-Mode	Use the provided examples and settings. Look for settings with WMBUS in the name in SmartRF Studio
rf_patch_rfe_ble_coex	RFE patch for BLE co-existence	Please see Coexistence for details
rf_patch_rfe_genook	RFE patch to support OOK	Use the provided examples and settings. Look for settings with OOK in the name in SmartRF Studio

Overrides

Overrides contain additional configuration settings for the RF core firmware that are not part of the setup command. They are written into the RF core RAM and can be seen as variables of the RF core firmware. Overrides are interpreted by the RF core firmware and therefore, their order is important. Several types exist:

• overrides that write to internal hardware registers on the RF core
• overrides that write to firmware parameters located in the RF core RAM

Overrides are usually taken as-is from SysConfig (or SmartRF Studio). They are gathered in a 1-dimensional array of integers that is terminated by 0xFFFFFFFF and then linked to the pRegOverride parameter in the setup command:

// Overrides for CMD_PROP_RADIO_DIV_SETUP
static uint32_t pOverrides[] =
{
    // 0: Run MCE firmware from ROM.
    // 4: Run MCE firmware from ROM bank 4.
    // 0: Use MCE firmware in mode 0. Sometimes, a patch provides more than one operation mode.
    // 1: Run RFE firmware from RAM (use the patch instead of the ROM.
    // 0: Does not apply, since RFE firmware runs from RAM.
    // 0: Run RFE firmware in mode 0.
    MCE_RFE_OVERRIDE(0,4,0,1,0,0),
    // ...
    // Termination value
    (uint32_t)0xFFFFFFFF
}

RF_cmdPropRadioDivSetup.pRegOverride = &pOverrides;