nosdk8266

Update @ba0sh1 on Twitter pointed out I'm about 2 years too late. pvvx already has something similar to this, but with more stuff like timers, etc.: https://github.com/pvvx/SDKnoWiFi So - if you want something between this and the full-blown wifi stack, go there!

Hackaday Article: http://hackaday.com/2016/11/30/the-esp-a-new-1kb-contender-appears Youtube video:

There is an awesome little $2 processor called an "ESP8266." It's the definitive chip that is bringing the internet of things to life. Ever wonder what the ESP8266 can do without wifi? Well, this project is it! No longer shackled by an SDK that takes up 200 kB of flash, and tons of RAM, you're free to experiment and do so quickly. Little did we realize how limited the clocks were and just how fast this chip can be once unleashed.

This is a working ESP8266/ESP8285 minimial, non-SDK application. It can optionally use the ROM functions to deal with I/O, interrupts, printf'ing, etc.

If you don't need to access FLASH at all after booting, that frees up some of those GPIOs attached to the flash chip, provided you disable its CS line.

Alternatively, a "PICO66" build can be made, which is intended to be compliant to the HackADay 1kB challenge. In PICO66 mode, printf'ing is disabled (Though it can be overridden for debugging) In order to be compliant, all ROM functions will count against you. Basically if you want to participate you'll have to make sure USE_PRINT is turned off in your final submission.

PICO66 Code-size-table (with USE_PRINT disabled, simple blink program) as of 0aafb08

Desired Frequency	I2S Size (in bytes)	Size, without I2S bus	Remarks	Peripheral Bus Clock	Voids Warranty
52 MHz	Unavailable	131+0	No PLL, No overclocking, Default behavior	52 MHz	N
104 MHz	Unavailable	147+0	No PLL, Overclocking bit set	52 MHz	?
80 MHz	356+24	188+0	PLL, Normal speed.	80 MHz	N
160 MHz	372+24	204+0	PLL, Normal "overclock" mode	80 MHz	?
115 MHz	356+24	188+0	Overclock peripheral bus. (Voids warranty, may not work)	115.5 MHz	Y
231 MHz	372+24	204+0	Overclock peripheral bus. (Voids warranty, may not work)	115.5 MHz	Y
173 MHz	356+24	188+0	Needs >.2s reset to boot.	173 MHz	Y
346 MHz	372+24	204+0	Needs >.2s reset to boot.	173 MHz	Y
189 MHz	356+24	188+0	Frequently will not boot.	~189 MHz	YES
378 MHz	372+24	204+0	Runs slower on ESP8285.	~189 MHz	YES

Interestingly, you might notice that the way this works is with a 1040 MHz high speed PLL clock and divides from that. When the clock rate is very high, i.e. 189/378 MHz, the PLL may or may not lock if the processor boots at all. I found that my clock was wandering around when operating up there.

Prerequisites and Building

You'll need the xtensa compiler and a copy of esptool.py. Both of whih will come with the ESP Open SDK. Pick a folder and install the esp open sdk. NOTE: If you will want to use the combined toolchain, select STANDALONE=y. For this system, we will not need that, though.

I strongly recommend using a Linux system. Follow the information on esp-open-sdk's site for more details and lists of Linux package prerequisites.

$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/pfalcon/esp-open-sdk.git
$ cd esp-open-sdk
$ make STANDALONE=n

Altering the Makefile

The makefile has some defaults, however, you will likely need to modify the ESP_OPEN_SDK parameter to compile on your system, so they point to your esp open sdk.

ESP_OPEN_SDK:=~/esp8266/esp-open-sdk

Once done, save your Makefile and type:

make clean all burn

Cleaning, building and burning should only take about two seconds. Yes, that means you can comfortably run through about 10 development cycles per minute. Let's call this your DCPM rate. Remember kids, always find ways of maximizing your DCPM rate.

Additional Remarks

All PLL settings are hard-coded for a 26 MHz external crystal. This is probaly okay because almost everyone uses this. However, it does mean you cannot use this project with any other crystals that are compatible with the ESP (i.e. 40 MHz crystals).

Credits

A large portion of figuring out what's what was done by @pvvx, over at his esp8266web repository. Additionally, some of the header files are still licensed Espressif. So, don't let the MIT license on the overarching project confuse you.

Tips I Learned

GCC Xtensa will create smaller code if you have volatile pointers to arrays, rather than setting absolute memory addresses. Indirect accessing isn't slower, and it makes smaller code. Additionally, if you just store the pointer to the base of an array, like the IO MUX register, and you index into it multiple times, it doesn't need to take up prescious space holding that.
Avoid using macro's to do pointer arithmatic. Also, try to find out where you are or'ing masks, etc. where you don't need to be.
Always make sure to have your function declarations available when used. Failure to do this gimps -flto's ability to inline functions.
Compile with -g to make the assembly listing much easier to read.

I'm sure there's more...

Todo

Figure out how to get rid of the prologue to main(). Even though it's marked as noreturn, GCC is doing stuff with the stack, etc.
Add Sleep feature.
Figure out why power consumption is higher than I would expect.

CristianPi / nosdk8266