Maybe you are using a multi-core device in your projects, but have not tapped into multi-core usage yet? FreeRTOS V11.0 is out, and the big news is that it has finally Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) integrated into the mainline. This greatly simplifies FreeRTOS usage, as I finally can use the same RTOS for my SMP targets and boards, and I can easily switch between single-core and multi-core applications.
The new year 2024 is coming, so time to close the current year with a new release: I’m pleased to announce a new release of the Processor Expert components, available on SourceForge and GitHub.
It is August 1st, and Switzerland is celebrating its National Holiday. Rather cold and rainy, so this gets me some time to catch up on things. The preparation for the coming university semester in September is in full swing, and I have the honor to take over building up a new Master of Science in Engineering education module. In the existing courses I teach on the topic of embedded systems, I do use devices and MCUs from vendors like Broadcom, NXP, STM, Nordic, Raspberry Pi and Espressif. This not only means different SDKs, but different IDEs with different debug probes.
Eclipse has been the common factor in the mix with all these, and with all the pros and cons, it worked very well. With NXP having released support for Visual Studio Code, adding an announcement, and other vendors going into the same direction, I took the decision that I want to migrate my lab and lecture infrastructure to VS Code.
Continue readingI’m pleased to announce a new release of the McuOnEclipse Processor Expert components, available on SourceForge.
Split-flap displays are electromechanical display devices, which were common in airports or railway stations a few years ago.Unfortunately, most of them are gone and replaced by LED displays. Why not create a DIY version of it?
It is one thing to create something ‘cool’ or technically interesting. But it is a completely different story to convince your girlfriend, partner, wife, family (or whatever you can name it) to hang something on a wall in our house or office. Then it is not about technology: it is more about design and art. So here is my attempt to solve that challenge:
Displaying temperature with a painted canvas, stepper motors and 2400 RGB LEDs
In JTAG Debugging the ESP32 with FT2232 and OpenOCD I have used a FTDI FT2232 breakout board to JTAG debug with OpenOCD. With an adapter board on top of the TDI FT2232 the wiring is much easier and simpler to use:
JTAG Debugging the ESP32 with FT2232
When Espressif released in 2014 their first WiFi ESP8266 transceiver, they took over at least the hobby market with their inexpensive wireless devices. Yet again, the successor ESP32 device is used in many projects. Rightfully there are many other industrial Wi-Fi solutions, but Espressif opened up the door for Wi-Fi in many low cost projects. Many projects use the ESP devices in an Arduino environment which basically means decent debugging except using printf() style which is … hmmm … better than nothing.
What is maybe not known to many ESP32 users: there *is* actually a way to use JTAG with the ESP32 devices :-). It requires some extra tools and setup, but with I have a decent Eclipse based way to debug the code. And this is what this article is about: how to use a SEGGER J-Link with Eclipse and OpenOCD for JTAG debugging the ESP32.
Robot with ESP32 and JTAG Debug Port
MCU on Eclipse 