Category Archives: Debugging

Regaining Debug Access to NXP i.MX RT1064-EVK executing WFI

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Working with low power modes can be challenging. It can severely affect debugging capabilities of a microprocessor or microcontroller. I ported a FreeRTOS application using the Tickless Idle Mode to the NXP i.MX RT1064 board, and all of a sudden, the board was unresponsive to any debugger connection. Luckily the board was not really bricked, but it took me while to find a way to recover it. So for when you end up in a situation with a ‘bricked’ i.MX RT1064 board, this article might be helpful for you to recover it.

i.MX RT1064-EVK Board

i.MX RT1064-EVK Board

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Freelink LPC4322JET100 based Debug Circuit on NXP i.MX RT1064-EVK Board

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As noticed in “First Steps with the NXP i.MX RT1064-EVK Board” there is a new LPC4322 based debug interface on the RT1064-EVK board.

LPC4322JET100 based Debug Interface

LPC4322JET100 based Debug Interface

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First Steps with the NXP i.MX RT1064-EVK Board

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I always reserve time between Christmas and New Year to get my hands on technology pieces which I might not have any time otherwise. Among different things I ordered the NXP i.MX RT1064-EVK board from Mouser.com, and it arrived right before Christmas. Time to have it unboxed and started….

i.MX RT1064 Processor

i.MX RT1064 Processor

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New NXP MCUXpresso IDE V10.3.0 Release

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Friday this week NXP has released a new version of their flagship IDE: the MCUXpresso IDE V10.3.0. The version number indicates an incremental update from the earlier V10.2.1,  but there are many exciting features and new features which make me switch my lecture material to this new IDE for the next semester.

MCUXpresso IDE V10.3.0

MCUXpresso IDE V10.3.0

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Using GDB Server Monitor Commands from Eclipse GDB Console

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With Eclipse as IDE it is very easy to debug an application on a board. Still sometimes it is useful to get one level down and control the GDB server directly.

Monitor Flash Download

Monitor Flash Download

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McuOnEclipse Components: 30-Sept-2018 Release

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I’m pleased to announce a new release of the McuOnEclipse components, available on SourceForge. This release includes several bug fixes, extra support for the NXP S32 Design Studio and SDK and includes FreeRTOS V10.1.1.

SourceForge

SourceForge

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Tutorial: μCUnit, a Unit Test Framework for Microcontrollers

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Unit testing is a common practice for host development. But for embedded development this still seems mostly a ‘blank’ area. Mostly because embedded engineers are not used to unit testing, or because the usual framework for unit testing requires too many resources on an embedded target?

What I have used is the μCUnit framework which is a small and easy to use framework, targeting small microcontroller applications.

uCUnit

uCUnit

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Tutorial: First Steps with Embedded Artists NXP i.MX RT1052 OEM Module

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Not ready for the complexity of a full blown Embedded Linux, but need that extra compute performance? Need an ARM Cortex-M7 running at 600 MHz module on a half-sized business card, ready to be integrated? Here we go: the Embedded Artists i.MX RT1052 OEM module:

Embedded Artists NXP i.MX RT1052 OEM Module

Embedded Artists NXP i.MX RT1052 OEM Module

Compute modules are very common in the Embedded Linux space, for example see this Toradex module. The reason is simple: these high-performance boards simplify the design, as I don’t have to care about the BGA packages and the external SDRAM and FLASH devices: everything is on a module I can easily integrate into my base board.

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Tutorial: Catching Rogue Memory Accesses with ARM Watchpoint Comparators and Instruction Trace

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In my “Tutorial: Catching Rogue Memory Accesses with Eclipse and GDB Watchpoints” I have used Eclipse/CDT and GDB watchpoints.  I used a conditional watchpoint, but this comes with a performance hit. In this article I show how to use the ARM Cortex trace hardware to catch specific writes to a memory location. Without severe performance degradation. But for this I need a little helper: the DEADBEEF catcher!

0xdeadbeef catcher

0xdeadbeef catcher

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Tutorial: Catching Rogue Memory Accesses with Eclipse and GDB Watchpoints

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Eclipse is great: it gives me the tools and capabilities to solve the really hard bugs to find. An example of that ‘hard’ category are ‘rogue’ memory accesses: something in the application is accessing an unwanted memory location and corrupts the data. This might be very sporadic, or takes a long while until it happens. With normal ‘stop-mode’ debugging (setting a normal breakpoint) and stepping usually won’t let me find that bug, as it might be coming from a pointer somewhere. Maybe from an interrupt routine. Or maybe an unitialized or corrupted pointer corrupts to my memory. Usually all what I know is the memory adddress of the data, maybe what is written, but not what or who is writing to that location.

In this article I’m using one of the ‘less-known’ debugging techniques available in Eclipse and CDT and how it works: watchpoints!

Watchpoint with Condition

Watchpoint with Condition

In this article I’m using one of the ‘less-known’ debugging techniques available in Eclipse and CDT and how it works: watchpoints!

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