Tag Archives: Building

About build tools, make files, compiling and linking.

mbed for the Freedom Board

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I knew about mbed already for some time: watching students using it for an NXP enabled board. Pretty cool stuff: mbed is an online IDE and compiler with tons of software libraries for the supported platform. So I was dreaming to have something like this for my own boards like the Freedom board. But because mbed only supported two dedicated NXP boards, that was a road block.

But then mbed announced recently that the mbed SDK is open source. Wow, that is interesting! And finally the announcement last week: mbed supports the KL25Z Freedom Board. Now they have my attention :-).

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The Quotation Problem

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Maybe this article gets the attention of a local optometrist or eye shop: I have a business opportunity for you! ;-).

I ran into a weird problem: I received an ARM GNU gcc project which failed during the generation of the S19 file in strange way:

'Executing target #80 Freedom_Zumo.siz'
'Invoking: ARM Ltd Windows GNU Create Flash Image'
“C:/Freescale/CW MCU v10.3\eclipse\../Cross_Tools/arm-none-eabi-gcc-4_7_3/bin/arm-none-eabi-objcopy”  -O srec Freedom_Zumo.elf "Freedom_Zumo.hex"
' '
Der Befehl "“C:" ist entweder falsch geschrieben oder
konnte nicht gefunden werden.
mingw32-make: *** [Freedom_Zumo.hex] Error 1

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Tutorial: Using the ARM CMSIS Library

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One of the great advantage of using an ARM core as on my FRDM-KL25Z board is that I can leverage a lot of things from the community. And one big thing around ARM is CMSIS (Cortex Microcontroller Software Interface Standard). It is an industry wide software library for the ARM Cortex microcontroller. Using the CMSIS libraries and interfaces will make it easier to port applications within the ARM Cortex family.

CMSIS Version 3 Block Diagram (Source: Arm.com)

CMSIS Version 3 Block Diagram (Source: Arm.com)

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Creating and using Libraries with ARM gcc and Eclipse

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In ‘A Library with ARM gcc and Eclipse’ I was using the CodeWarrior MCU10.3 beta version to create a library project. At that time I had to do things manually. Now with the final MCU10.3 there is an option in the New Project Wizard which makes things easier:

Library Creation

Library Creation

This will create a library (or better: an archive) with gcc for me. But how to use it from another project?

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Tutorial: Printf() with (and without) Processor Expert

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In this post I tapped into how to print messages to a console using  the Kinetis/Freedom board. I’m not a fan of printf() for multiple reasons: It is simply a bad thing for embedded systems programming. But as many have asked for it, here is how to say “hello” from the Freedom Board using printf():

Hello World on the Terminal

Hello World on the Terminal

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Tutorial: IAR + FreeRTOS + Freedom Board

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Maybe Eclipse is ‘too much’, and you are looking for something different? The cool thing with Processor Expert is that while this is Eclipse based, you can use it easily with other tool chains like IAR Embedded Workbench. So you have the choice, and I have explored things a little with porting FreeRTOS for Cortex-M0+ to IAR :-).

IAR Embedded Workbench with FreeRTOS

IAR Embedded Workbench with FreeRTOS

In this tutorial I’m showing how use IAR with FreeRTOS and the Freedom FRDM-KL25Z Board, using Processor Expert components.

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Reducing the build time with gcc for ARM and CodeWarrior

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Eclipse based CodeWarrior for MCU10.3 comes with gcc build tools for Kinetis/ARM cores. While it features the parallel build make, I noticed that especially for larger projects build times are not as fast as it should be. The good news is: I was able to cut down my build time to less than half with a simple change :-).

When I looked at the output folder where all the object and make files are stored by Eclipse, I noticed that it has as well the listing files generated:

Listing Files in output folder

Listing Files in output folder

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Free Static Code Analysis with Eclipse

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I know for myself: the earlier I’m able to fix a bug, the better. So I’m always grateful for things which help me to find issues in my sources as early in the development process as possible. Eclipse and CodeWarrior already help me to find syntax errors in my code while I’m typing:

Eclipse highlighting syntax error

Eclipse highlighting syntax error

With the built-in syntax checker of Eclipse, this helps me many times to get things right without the need to build my code with the compiler. But when I’m able to compile successfully my code, this does not mean it is without bugs. It would be good to catch as many errors *before* downloading and running it on the target.

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Migrating Kinetis-L Projects from Beta to Final MCU 10.3

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I have successfully used CodeWarrior for MCU10.3 beta version for many projects. With the advent of the final CodeWarrior for MCU10.3, I want to migrate my existing projects to the new and final version. First: my existing projects work as well in the final version, which is good news. But there are two things to change to take advantage of the final 10.3:

  1. Linker file memory split
  2. ARM Micro Trace Buffer (MTB) support

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