I know: A new McuOnEclipse Processor Expert components release was long overdue. But I have been extremely busy in the last months, but now the university semester is over, and I have finally some spare time to catch up on a lot of things. So here we go: there is a new component release available on SourceForge (https://sourceforge.net/projects/mcuoneclipse/files/PEx%20Components/): Components 2015-07-05.zip
McuOneEclipse Components on SourceForge
There are cases when I need to do a reset of the device by software. For example I have loaded the application image with the bootloader, and then I need to perform a reset of the microcontroller to do a restart. As a human user I can press the reset button on the board. But how to do this from the software and application running on the board, without user manual intervention? Or if I simply want to reset the system for whatever reason?
Freescale Kinetis Design Studio V3.0.0 came out early May this year. One of the new cool features is that it includes the Processor Expert V3.0.0 with an extended New Project Wizard. With this wizard I’m able to create and use Processor Expert projects with IAR Embedded Workbench and Keil MDK :-).
Kinetis Design Studio, Keil MDK and IAR Embedded Workbench
In case you are running into the following GNU linker error about a missing __end__:
'Building target: MyProject.elf' 'Invoking: Cross ARM C++ Linker' ... toolchain/bin/../lib/gcc/arm-none-eabi/4.8.4/../../../../arm-none-eabi/lib/armv6-m/rdimon-crt0.o: In function `_start': (.text+0xdc): undefined reference to `__end__' collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status make: *** [MyProject.elf] Error 1
Failed link because missing __end__
The GNU linker complains that rdimon-crt0.o needs the symbol __end__. This symbol marks the end of the user data/RAM section, and is needed by the rdimon library specs which is used with semihosting.
So NXP announced here a $40 Billion Merger with Freescale. Frequent readers of my blog will know that I’m using in my own and university projects many Freescale devices with Eclipse based tools (Eclipse Kepler/Luna, Emprog ThunderBench, Atollic TrueSTUDIO, Freescale CodeWarrior and of Freescale Kinetis Design Studio) in combination with Processor Expert. In a few projects I have used NXP devices with the CodeRed Eclipse base tools too. So I was curious how that merger of the two silicon companies could look like, if you merge the Freescale and NXP Eclipse based tools, and mix it with Processor Expert and the Freescale Kinetis SDK? The result looks like this:
LPCXpresso v7.7.2 with Processor Expert and Kinetis SDK
In my classes I’m mainly using the Freescale FRDM-KL25Z board, as it provides the best value for the money, and 128 kByte FLASH with 16 kByte of RAM is enough for many smaller projects. I do have as well the FRDM-KL02Z Board (32 KByte FLASH, 4 KByte of RAM) which is an inexpensive board to evaluate the smaller KL02Z microcontroller. Because someone reported a problem not being able to use the UART over OpenSDA/USB-to-CDC bridge, I have created a demo project which communicates with a console on the host.
FRDM-KL02Z Board
Frequent readers of this blog know: I’m using Processor Expert in most of my projects with CodeWarrior, Driver Suite or Kinetis Design Studio. With the move of Freescale to Kinetis Design Studio and the Kinetis SDK with Processor Expert, there is an opportunity for our voice to be heard in a survey Freescale now runs about configuration tools and Processor Expert.
Processor Expert
Happy Surveying 🙂
In one of my earlier posts (“Using the DHT11/DHT22 Temperature/Humidity Sensor with a FRDM Board“) I’m using the DHT11/DHT22 temperature/humidity sensors with the FRDM-KL25Z board. These sensors are very inexpensive, but have limited measurement range and accuracy. As pointed out by a reader of that article, Sensirion (a Swiss company :-)) has good sensors too, and I decided I would like to try the SHT11 sensor:
SHT11 Sensor
For a home automation project I need to know the room temperature and humidity percentage of the room air. Adafruit has an inexpensive DHT11 sensor from http://www.aosong.com which I decided to use for that project.
Test Setup for DHT11 Sensor
There is a new release of the McuOnEclipse components available on SourceForge, with the following main changes:
SourceForge McuOnEclipse
MCU on Eclipse 