Investigating ARM Cortex® M33 core with TrustZone® – Setting up your environment and creating your first project with MCUXpresso IDE

This is the second of my 17-part video tutorial series investigating the ARM Cortex® M33 core with TrustZone® security extension. My preferred platform for this investigation is the LPC55S69 from NXP, and of course it is necessary to have a development board and IDE. So I’m using the LPC55S69-EVK with NXP’s MCUXpresso IDE and the MCUXpresso Software Development Kit (SDK).

This week the video is really low on theory, but high on practical, step-by-step information to get started with these tools. Maybe you are similar to me, and make the same mistake every time?? I get the self-assembly furniture home from the store, or open the box containing the new development board and just get started. At some point it doesn’t work properly and that’s the time I must read the supporting information.

Well, with this video I show you beginning-to-end in just over 10 minutes, and you won’t need to refer to any other material.

During the video I show you the following steps:

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NXP MCUXpresso IDE 11.0.1 available

NXP has released an update of the Eclipse based V11 IDE. This is right on time for the new semester starting mid of September where this IDE will be used in several labs.

MCUXpresso IDE V11.0.1

MCUXpresso IDE V11.0.1

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Investigating ARM Cortex® M33 core with TrustZone® – Unboxing and Getting Started

Hi, I’m Mark from embeddedpro® in the United Kingdom and Erich’s allowed me to be a guest blogger here on mcuoneclipse. At many industry events, trade shows and conferences I’ve seen and given presentations about TrustZone®, but have not found tutorials or practical information online.

So I’m creating a 17 part video tutorial series (it will be published weekly here) investigating the ARM Cortex® M33 core with the TrustZone® security extension. Each week from now until the end-of-year holidays I will let you know what I’ve found out with a blog here, and a video blog on youtube. My friends at NXP have given me a LPC55S69-EVK board as the basis for my experiments:

LPC55S69-EVK (linked from nxp.com)

This is my first quick post showing the unboxing of the LPC55S69-EVK and the out-of-box experience.

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Programming the ESP32 with an ARM Cortex-M USB CDC Gateway

The Espressif ESP32 devices are getting everywhere: they are inexpensive, readily available and Espressif IDF environment and build system actually is pretty good and working well for me including Eclipse (see “Building and Flashing ESP32 Applications with Eclipse“). The default way to program an ESP32 is to a) enter UART bootloader by pressing some push buttons and b) flash the application with ESP-IDF using a USB cable.

That works fine if the ESP32 is directly connected to the host PC. But in my case it is is behind an NXP Kinetis K22FX512 ARM Cortex-M4F microcontroller and not directly accessible by the host PC. So I had to find a way how to allow boot loading the ESP32 through the ARM Cortex-M which is the topic of this article.

TTGO ESP32 MICRO-D4 Module

TTGO ESP32 MICRO-D4 Module

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DIY Stepper Motor Clock with NXP LPC845-BRK

This project is about building a stepper motor clock around the NXP LPC845-BRK board. The design is using a combination of 3D printed and laser cut parts and costs below $15.

Stepper Clock Acrylic Face White Hands

Stepper Clock Acrylic Face White Hands

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Building and Flashing ESP32 Applications with Eclipse

The new semester is approaching in a very fast way, and so is the new lecture and lab module ‘Advanced Distributed Systems’ at the Lucerne University. For that module we are going to build a new ‘Sumo’ style robot with WLAN capabilities using the ESP32 chip. It will be a new robot PCB, and below is the current robot (based on NXP K22FX512) with the WLAN module connected to it:

Zumo connected to TTGO ESP32 module

Zumo connected to TTGO ESP32 module

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Tutorial: How to Optimize Code and RAM Size

It is great if vendors provide a starting point for my own projects. A working ‘blinky’ is always a great starter. Convenience always has a price, and with a ‘blinky’ it is that the code size for just ‘toggling a GPIO pin’ is exaggerated. For a device with a tiny amount of RAM and FLASH this can be concerning: will my application ever fit to that device if a ‘blinky’ takes that much? Don’t worry: a blinky (or any other project) can be easily trimmed down.

Binky on NXP LPC845-BRK Board

Binky on NXP LPC845-BRK Board

I use a ‘blinky’ project here just as an example: the trimming tips can apply to any other kind of projects too.

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OpenPnP Solder Dispenser Sneak Preview

Many of you are aware of that DIY Pick&Place machine build documented in “Building a DIY SMT Pick&Place Machine with OpenPnP and Smoothieboard (NXP LPC1769)“.

That machine has now been modified to dispense solder paste. I did not had time yet to describe the build, but as I have received recently many questions: here are some pre-information about the build:

Solder Paste Dispenser

Solder Paste Dispenser

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Restoring Default Firmware on Seeed Arch Mix NXP i.MX RT1052 Board

In my previous article “Debug and Execute Code from FLASH on the Seeed Arch Mix NXP i.MX RT1052 Board” I explained how to take complete control over the board and flash and debug a firmware. Of course this overwrites the one which comes by default shipped on the board. This article is about how to restore or update the original firmware.

Restored Seeed Firmware

Restored Seeed Firmware

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