Monthly Archives: August 2015

Overview: From Snippets to Code Generation

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To build an application for a modern microcontroller today is not a simple thing. Well, it depends what ‘simple’ means. But compared to the ‘old days of 8bit micro controllers’ (which are still in use!) developing for a complex 32bit device is definitely a different thing. Not only the complexity has changed, but as well the breath of tools and helpers. In my view, the only constant is ‘change’, and I have changed the way how to develop several times in my career. In this post I present several different techniques I’m using in my development.

Processor Expert CPU View

Processor Expert CPU View

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Thanks to Erich and FRDM-K64F!! :)

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It has been a long time since I wrote my last blog. I really want to apologize to you all for the delay, but I was busy with another project about the competitive analysis of Freescale with our competitors. I hope I can provide you guys later with some important findings from my research.

Well as far as my project for neopixels using FRDM-K64F is concerned, Erich wrote the wonderful tutorial for all of us to turn on the NeoMatrix. I tried my hands on that and I was indeed able to turn on the board but not in the way I wanted it to. 😦 So, it turns out that I got few LEDs turning blue or some turning green. I asked Erich about it and I got to know that it is because I screwed up with the timing signals. I was using an oscilloscope and not a logic analyzer but Erich’s recommendation was to use the Logic Analyzer. This was the result of my experiment following Erich’s tutorials.

Tutorial: Adafruit WS2812B NeoPixels with the Freescale FRDM-K64F Board – Part 1: Hardware

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The Hardware

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Board Take-Over: Using Segger J-Link to Debug NXP

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So NXP has announced that they want to take over Freescale (see this press release). In an earlier post I experimented how Freescale tools could be used in NXP tools, see “Merging NXP LPCXpresso IDE with Freescale Kinetis Design Studio, Processor Expert and Kinetis SDK“. Just for fun, I want to do the acquisition the other way round: Using Freescale (now NXP) software and tools to build and debug the LPC824 from NXP :-).

Debugging the NXP LPC824 with Freescale J-Link Lite

Debugging the NXP LPC824 with Freescale based J-Link Lite

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Part 2: Barbecue Beef Brisket Texas Style – The Rub

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It’s 5:15am, and started the fire in the smoker. Until it warms up, time to apply the rub to the brisket.

I have learned that Brisket is the national food of the Republic of Texas. I decided that this time I will do the rub differently: salting the meat the day before (see “Part 1: Barbecue Beef Brisket Texas Style – The Meat and the Salt“), and applying the rub (without any salt) just before putting the meat into the smoker. I’m using a variation of Texas “Dalmatian Rub”: salt (applied before), coarsely cracked black pepper with a few spices.

Rub Ingredients

Rub Ingredients

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Translating for the world …

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English is not my first language, but I use it in this blog because that way I can reach a broader audience. If I would use Swiss German, only a few would be able to understand what I write about: “Wänn I würd schwiizerdütsch bruuche, dänn chönt wohl chuum öpper das hie läse” ;-).

Google Translate is not prefect, but still it does a fair job of translating web pages. I have added now a Google translate button to this blog side bar. Click on it and have the web page translated to the language of your choice. Try it out:

GoogleTranslate

💡 If you are speaking Portuguese and want to learn about the Freescale FRDM-KL25Z board, then check out https://hardwarizando.wordpress.com/2015/08/11/introducao-a-kl25z-codewarrior-processor-expert-e-interrupcoes-periodicas/

Happy Translating 🙂

PS: some of the translations by Google are sooooo funny 🙂

Sneak Preview: Profiling Bare Metal Microcontroller Applications with GNU gprof

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I’m working on a conference paper and presentation, and tonight I had a break-through :-). So how cool is this: Profiling with GNU gprof a bare-metal embedded Cortex-M application (Freescale Kinetis K64F running the Freescale Kinetis SDK) in Eclipse:

Freescale Kinetis Microcontroller Application Profiling

Freescale Kinetis Microcontroller Application Profiling

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