Configuring SDP-S as SPI interface via USB

Question

The product page for the SDP-S states: 
 
 USB to Serial Engine 
 1 xsmall footprint 120 Pin Connector 
 Configurable interface ( SPI, I2C, GPIO) 
 USB 2.0 interface to the PC 
 
 I currently have a EVAL-ADF4371 and would like to communicate via the SDP-S USB connection directly with the ADF4371 from my own code. I have only seen examples of hard connecting to the boards SPI pins to speak with the ADF4371 registers in Linux, but I'm able to use the ACE software in windows with no issues. There must be an interface for connecting to the device. 
 I looked in libiio and am not able to get it to recognize the SDP-S or the ADF4371 via a USB connection. 
 Does anyone know a work around for this or know how to configure the SDP-S?

DavidORiordan · Accepted Answer

Hi GTRIDev, I've replied to one of your other posts elsewhere. I recently took on responsibility for supporting the SDP-S. Primarily supporting the hardware and to a certain extent the background API that ACE and other packaged software use to communicate with the SDP-S. That background API is not available to the public. The libiio/pyadi-iio sounds like the only way to use the board outside of ACE if you don't want to start from zero. I'm not familiar with pyadi-iio unfortunately. 
 Essentially, are you looking for a way to send SPI commands from Linux/Windows to the EVAL-ADF4371? 
 If you are writing your own code, the SDP-K1 may be a better tool? SDP-K1 Evaluation Board | Analog Devices 
 It features the same 120 pin connector as the SDP-S and you can program it using the STM32 HAL layer from IAR or Keil. Usually I would say you can use MBED too, but the ADF4371 uses 3 wire / Half Duplex SPI which is not supported by default in MBED. In fact this 3 wire interface may cause problems with other alternative workarounds. 
 I know for a fact that the SDP-K1 using STM32 HAL commands can be used to read/write 3 wire SPI. But you are getting deep into the configuration of the STM32F469 at that stage compared to using python with the pyadi-iio library!)

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Configuring SDP-S as SPI interface via USB