Category Archives: Freescale

Recovering OpenSDA Boards with Windows 10

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Windows 8 and 10 have added a ‘feature’ to scan and index devices attached to the host machine. This means that bootloaders or MSD (Mass Storage Device) programming implementations on evaluation boards developed in the Windows 7 age might not be prepared for that. Up to the point that it can impact the bootloader as outlined in “Bricking and Recovering OpenSDA Boards in Windows 8 and 10“. So far one of the easiest way to get out that situation was to use a Windows 7 machine. But if you only have a Windows 10 machine available, this article describes the needed steps to update the bootloader with Windows 10 host machines.

OpenSDA LED

OpenSDA LED

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McuOnEclipse Components: 1-Apr-2018 Release

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It’s April Fool’s Day, but be assured this is not a joke ;-): I’m pleased to announce that a new release of the McuOnEclipse components is available in SourceForge. This release includes several smaller bug fixes and components have been upgraded for FreeRTOS V10.0.1.

SourceForge

SourceForge

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Flash-Resident USB-HID Bootloader with the NXP Kinetis K22 Microcontroller

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The tinyK22 board (see “tinyK22 Boards arrived“) gets rolled out at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, so I thought I write-up an article this weekend how to use that board with a Flash Resident Bootloader.

tinyK22 with USB HID Bootloader

tinyK22 with USB HID Bootloader

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Debugging the Teensy 3.6 with Eclipse MCUXpresso IDE and CMSIS-DAP LPC-Link2

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The Teensy boards are great, but as they are they are not really useful for real development, as they lack proper SWD debugging. In “Modifying the Teensy 3.5 and 3.6 for ARM SWD Debugging” I have found a way to get SWD debugging working, at that time with Kinetis Design Studio and the Segger J-Link. This article is about how debug the Teensy with free MCUXpresso IDE and the $20 NXP LPC-Link2 debug probe:

Teensy 3.6 with NXP LPC-Link2

Teensy 3.6 with NXP LPC-Link2

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New FreeRTOS V10.0.0: Amazon, Segger SystemView and Percepio Tracealyzer

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“Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers”: The announcement of FreeRTOS V10.0.0 was one of the biggest news last week for me. Not only is there now a Version 10, the bigger news is that FreeRTOS is now part of Amazon. Wow! Now this explains why Richard Barry (the founder behind FreeRTOS) was kind of hiding away for about a year: he joined Amazon as a principal engineer about a year ago. I think we all have to wait and see what it means for FreeRTOS.

Amazon FreeRTOS

Amazon FreeRTOS (Source: Amazon Web Site)

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Eclipse MCUXpresso IDE 10.1 with integrated MCUXpresso Configuration Tools

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Back in March 2017, NXP had rolled the MCUXpresso IDE starting with Version 10.0.0. With the intent to unify the SDK, LPCXpresso, CodeWarrior, Kinetis Design Studio and Processor Expert into one unified and integrated set of tools. V10.0.0 was a good start. The MCUXpresso IDE V10.0.2 in July was more of a smaller update, and the Pin and Clock configuration tools were not integrated, no added tool for peripheral configuration.

A week ago the MCUXpresso V10.1.0 has been released which shows where the journey is going: an free-of-charge and code size unlimited Eclipse based integrated set of tools to configure, build and debug Cortex-M (Kinetis, LPC and i.MX RT) microcontroller/processor based applications.

Clock Tool inside MCUXpresso IDE

Clock Tool inside MCUXpresso IDE

I have used it for a week, and although many things are still new, I thought I’m able to give an overview about what is new.

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Exploring a Microcontroller and Software and Tools for the next Project

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I’m using many microcontroller in my projects. And a lot more are available out there in the ecosystem. Like many others, I tend to select what I am familiar with. But is this the correct approach to select the hardware and tools for a next project?

Microcontroller Boards

Microcontroller Boards

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Adding a Delay to the ARM DAPLink Bootloader

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The ARM mbed USB MSD bootloader which is used on many silicon vendor boards has a big problem: it is vulnerable to operating systems like Windows 10 which can brick your board (see “Bricking and Recovering OpenSDA Boards in Windows 8 and 10“). To recover the board, typically a JTAG/SWD programmer has to be used. I have described in articles (see links section) how to recover from that situation, including using an inofficial new bootloader which (mostly) solves the problem. The good news is that ARM (mbed) has released an official and fixed bootloader. The bad news is that this bootloader does not work on every board because of a timing issue: the bootloader mostly enters bootloader mode instated executing the application.

DAPLink in Bootloader Mode

DAPLink in Bootloader Mode

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EmbSysRegView 0.2.6 for NXP Kinetis Design Studio V3.2.0

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Kinetis Design Studio by default uses an older version of EmbSysRegView. This article explains how to upgrade to the latest and greatest version 0.2.6. And how it is possible to use the latest NXP update for the 0.2.4 version:

Installed Files in Eclipse

Installed Files in Eclipse

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Dealing with Eclipse and Very Small Icons on Ultra High Density Displays

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More and more these very-very-high-resolution (UHD, Ultra-High-Density) notebook displays show up in my class rooms.These displays have 3100×1800 or even more pixels, making it great for watching high-resolution videos or for playing games (maybe?). But such a high-resolution makes many tools including Eclipse very hard to use, because the toolbar icons get so tiny that they are really hard to hit with a mouse cursor on Windows:

Eclipse Icons with UHD Display

Eclipse Icons with UHD Display

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McuOnEclipse Components: 25-Sept-2017 Release

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I’m pleased to announce that a new release of the McuOnEclipse components is available in SourceForge. In this release more ARM Cortex devices/vendors are supported with different SDKs, plus it comes with several FreeRTOS enhancements for debugging highly optimized code.

SourceForge

SourceForge

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Managing Project and Library Dependencies with Eclipse CDT

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For several projects I’m using library projects: I build a library and then use that library in the other project. If I change something in a library, I want to run make both on the referenced libraries and rebuild my application if needed. If you don’t know how to do this, then read on… 🙂

Shared Library Projects

Shared Library Projects

(… actually it means workign around  known Eclipse CDT bug too….)

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Using Multiple Memory Regions with the FreeRTOS Heap

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ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers can have multiple memory controllers. This is a good thing as it allows the hardware to do multiple parallel memory read/writes. However this makes the memory map more complicated for the software: it divides the memory into different regions and memory segments.  This article is about how to enable FreeRTOS to use multiple memory blocks for a virtual combined memory heap:

FreeRTOS with Segmented Heap Memory

FreeRTOS with Segmented Heap Memory

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Tutorial: Porting BLE+NRF Kinetis Design Studio Project to MCUXpresso IDE

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The tools and IDE market is constantly changing. Not only there is every year at least one new major Eclipse IDE release, the commercial tool chain and IDE vendors are constantly changing the environment too. For any ARM Cortex-M development, the combination of Eclipse with the GNU tool chain provided by ARM Inc. is the golden standard. But this does not mean that things can be easily moved from one IDE package to another.

While moving between Eclipse versions and GNU versions is usually not a big deal at all, moving between the Eclipse build tool integration is usually not simple. While the GNU MCU Eclipse plugins are widely used (see Breathing with Oxygen: DIY ARM Cortex-M C/C++ IDE and Toolchain with Eclipse Oxygen), the Eclipse based IDEs from the silicon vendors or commercial Eclipse toolchain vendors are using  their own GNU toolchain integration. Which means the project files are not compatible :-(.

NXP FRDM-KW41Z Board

NXP FRDM-KW41Z Board

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Adding CMSIS-SVD Files to EmbSysRegView 0.2.6.r192 and Eclipse

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In “EmbSysRegView 0.2.6 for Eclipse Neon and Oxygen” I have described how to add CMSIS-SVD register detail files to Eclipse using the EmbSysRegView plugin.

But what I need to add vendor or any other SVD files to it? Here is how:

EmbSys Registers View

EmbSys Registers View

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Troubleshooting Tips for FreeRTOS Thread Aware Debugging in Eclipse

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FreeRTOS seems to get more and more popular, and I think as well because more and more debugger and Eclipse IDE vendors add dedicated debugging support for it.

FreeRTOS Threads in Eclipse

FreeRTOS Threads in Eclipse

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Getting Started: ROM Bootloader on the NXP FRDM-KL03Z Board

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A bootloader on a microcontroller is a very useful thing. It allows me to update the firmware in the field if necessary. There are many ways to use and make a bootloader (see “Serial Bootloader for the Freedom Board with Processor Expert“). But such a bootloader needs some space in FLASH, plus it needs to be programmed first on a blank device, so a JTAG programmer is needed. That’s why vendors have started including a ROM bootloader into their devices: the microcontroller comes out of the factory with a bootloader in FLASH. So instead writing my bootloader, I can use the one in the ROM.

FRDM-KL03Z with ROM Bootloader

FRDM-KL03Z with ROM Bootloader

And as with everything, there are pros and cons of that approach.

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McuOnEclipse Components: 09-July-2017 Release

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I’m pleased to announce that a new release of the McuOnEclipse components is available in SourceForge, with the following major changes and updates:

  • Complete refactoring for 1-Wire stack and DS18B20 temperature sensor components
  • Added HID Joystick device class to the FSL_USB_Stack
  • New SDK_Timer component to work with Kinetis SDK
  • New ST756P LCD driver component
  • New TSL2561 digitial temperature sensor driver
  • Added ReadByte() and WriteByte() GenericI2C functions
  • Added 64bit mapping functions to Utility
  • added configUSE_NEWLIB_REENTRANT and newlib reentrancy support to FreeRTOS
  • Pull resistor support for SDK_BitIO
  • Many smaller bug fixes and enhancements
SourceForge

SourceForge

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