Category Archives: SDK

Disabling EzPort on NXP Kinetis to Solve Power-On Issues

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I’m using the NXP FRDM-K64F board in several projects: it is reasonably prices, has USB, Ethernet, micro SD card socket and connectors for Bluetooth classic and Nordic Semiconductor nRF24L01+ 2.4 GHz transceiver:

NXP FRDM-K64F Board

NXP FRDM-K64F Board

But one issue I have faced several times is that the board works fine while debugging and connected and powered by a host machine, but does not startup sometimes if powered by a battery or started without a debugger attached. I have found that the EzPort on the microcontroller is causing startup issues.

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McuOnEclipse Components: 30-Oct-2016 Release

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A new McuOnEclipse components release was long overdue, so I’m pleased to announce that a new drop is available with the following major changes:

  • Segger SystemView library with kernel time reporting
  • GenericTimeDate supports different hardware RTC devices
  • Utility with little endian packet handling functions
  • Shell Standard I/O handlers for USB CDC, Segger RTT and Bluetooth
  • FreeRTOS and stack size reporting
  • printf() support in Shell component
  • Various small bug fixes and improvements
SourceForge

SourceForge

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Tutorial: RFID Tags with the NXP NFC Controller PN7120 and Eclipse

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Playing with RFID and NFC is definitely fun :-), and they are everywhere! For a research project I’m exploring different RFID tags and solutions. I several types around for a long time, but never found the time to actually work on it, so last nightI thought I give it a try, and I have it working with GNU ARM and Eclipse, powered by the NXP FRDM-K64F board 🙂

NXP NFC PN7120S

NXP NFC PN7120S with a FRDM-K64F Board

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

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

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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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McuOnEclipse Components: 25-June-2016 Release

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SourceForge

SourceForge

A new release is available on SourceForge, with the following main changes:

  • Support for FreeRTOS and Cortex-M7
  • Segger SystemView updated to V2.38
  • Components for NXP Kinetis SDK V1.3
  • Fixed bug in Wait component (register handling for GCC and ARM)
  • FatFS supports FreeRTOS V9.0.0 with static memory allocation
  • FreeRTOS shell and task list with static memory allocation
  • Floating point conversion routines in Utility
  • FreeRTOS component shows NVIC mask bits

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First steps: ARM Cortex-M7 and FreeRTOS on NXP TWR-KV58F220M

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For a university research project I need a fast microcontroller with lots of RAM and FLASH memory. I have ordered a TWR-KV58F220M board from NXP which arrived yesterday. The special thing is that it has on of these new ARM Cortex-M7F on it:

TWR-KV58F220M Box

TWR-KV58F220M Box

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Combining Multiple NXP Kinetis SDKs into One

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My wife tells me that I have too many boards on my desk. That is only *partially* correct: there are many, but not *too* many. But I’m working on too many tasks, but that’s a different aspect :-). I’m using more and more the Kinetis SDK V2.0, and as a result of this I have multiple SDKs installed on my machine. Because with the SDK V2.0 I get a download for each device/board installed (see “First NXP Kinetis SDK Release: SDK V2.0 with Online On-Demand Package Builder“). So my list of SDK folders is growing, as shown with the ‘New SDK 2.x’ wizard in Kinetis Design Studio:

Multiple Kinetis SDKs

Multiple Kinetis SDKs

The same time, the amount of free disk space is reducing. What if I could combine all these SDK’s?

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Tutorial: Muxing with the New NXP Pins Tool

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I don’t know if it is the same for you. But for me, configuring the pins on these new ARM microcontroller is a challenge: Most pins can do multiple functions, such as be used as I²C, UART or GPIO pins.

Configuring the pins ‘by hand’ is difficult, error-prone and usually the first thing I need to do for a new project/device. NXP developed a new tool for this task and previewed it at FTF 2016. It is available now both as web (online) and desktop (locally installed) tool. At FTF it was possible to play with an engineering release: time to get my hands on the public release :-). And as more and more student projects will start using that tool for their boards, I better have a tutorial for it :-).

Desktop Version of Pins Tool

Desktop Version of Pins Tool

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FreeRTOS V9.0.0 with Static Memory Allocation

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I’m using FreeRTOS in most of my applications. There were only a few exceptions where an RTOS has to be used in safety critical systems: there usually it is not permitted to use any dynamic memory allocation because this adds the risk that a memory allocation could fail at runtime because of memory fragmentation or memory leak. And FreeRTOS uses a dynamic memory (heap) for the task stacks and the RTOS resources including semaphore, mutex and queues.

This is now a thing of the past. This week a new FreeRTOS Version 9 was released which does not need any dynamic memory allocation anymore: it is possible now to build completely statically allocated systems with FreeRTOS :-).

Dynamic and Static Memory Allocation in FreeRTOS V9.0.0

Dynamic and Static Memory Allocation in FreeRTOS V9.0.0

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