Tutorial: Blinky with Kinetis SDK V1.3 and Processor Expert

This tutorial goes through the steps how to create a blinking LED application, using Kinetis SDK and Processor Expert, using the TWR-KL43Z48M board from Freescale (now NXP):

twr-kl43z48m

twr-kl43z48m

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Enclosure for the Remote Robot Controller with LCD Display

The first enclosure for the INTRO robot remote controller board (see “INTRO Robot Remote – First Production PCB“) is ready, and it is looking good:

Enclosure for the Remote Controller Board

Enclosure for the Remote Controller Board

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ARM Cortex-M Interrupts and FreeRTOS: Part 3

This is the third part about ARM Cortex-M and how the interrupts are used. In Part 1 I discussed the Cortex-M interrupt system and in Part 2 I showed nested interrupt examples. This part is about FreeRTOS and how it uses the Cortex-M interrupt system.

NXP KV58F ARM Cortex-M7

NXP KV58F ARM Cortex-M7

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ARM Cortex-M, Interrupts and FreeRTOS: Part 2

In “ARM Cortex-M, Interrupts and FreeRTOS: Part 1”  I started with the ARM Cortex-M interrupt system. Because the ARM implementation cann be very confusing, I confused myself and had to fix and extend the description in Part 1 :-). Thank for all the feedback and comments!

Originally I wanted to cover FreeRTOS in Part 2. Based on the questions and discussions in Part 1 I thought it might be a good idea to provide visual examples.

NXP KV58F ARM Cortex-M7

NXP KV58F ARM Cortex-M7

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ARM Cortex-M, Interrupts and FreeRTOS: Part 1

The ARM Cortex-M microcontroller are very popular. And it has a very flexible and powerful nested vectored interrupt controller (NVIC) on it. But for many, including myself, the Cortex-M interrupt system can be leading to many bugs and lots of frustration :-(.

NXP KV58F ARM Cortex-M7

ARM Cortex-M7: NXP KV58

Understanding the NVIC and the ARM Cortex-M interrupt system is essential for every embedded application, but even for if using an realtime operating system: if you mess up with interrupts, very bad things will happen….

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Prototype of Wireless Remote Controller with NXP Kinetis K20

For next semester I plan to use the tinyK20 as a remote controller for the Zumo Robots. I already had an early prototype presented in “3D Printed Gameboy and Remote Controller with tinyK20 Board“, so here is the next iteration of, in a sneak preview:

Remote Controller Prototype

Remote Controller Prototype

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Eclipse and GDB: Process Properties, Arguments and GDB Traces

To me this was new, and thanks to Liviu I know now how to inspect the command line passed to the GDB server (see “Semihosting (again!) with NXP Kinetis SDK V2.0“) 🙂

Process Properties

Process Properties

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Semihosting (again!) with NXP Kinetis SDK V2.0

I kind of hoped that after “Why I don’t like printf()” and all my other articles about printf and semihosting, that topic would be 200% handled and I won’t have to deal with any more. Well, I was wrong and underestimated how the Kinetis SDK is interfering with semihosting. And I underestimated how many of my readers are still using semihosting (even as there are other and better alternatives), so I keep getting questions and requests for help. That’s ok, and I hope I can help :-).

So here is yet again another post about how to turn on semihosting with Eclipse, GNU ARM Embedded and the Kinetis SDK v2.0. This time with the FRDM-K64F board:

FRDM-K64F Board with lwIP running

FRDM-K64F Board

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Bricking and Recovering OpenSDA Boards in Windows 8 and 10

Getting a board from a distributor like Farnell/Element14/Mouser (add your own distributor) means that chances are high that the default firmware on it is written years from now because the inventory has not been updated, or because boards are still produced with that original firmware (because of testing?). So what happens if I use board with a firmware developed pre-Windows 8/10 area?

Freshly Unboxed NXP FRDM-KL25Z Board

Freshly Unboxed NXP FRDM-KL25Z Board

It might work, but chances are high that the bootloader and firmware is not ready for the ‘modern age’, and as a result the board might be bricked. If you still have a Windows 7 machine around (I do!), you are lucky. If not, then you need to read this article….

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