In “A Processor Expert Component to Help with Hard Faults” I’m using a C handler with some assembly code, created with Processor Expert, to help me with debugging hard faults on ARM Cortex-M. Inspired by a GNU gdb script here, I have now an alternative way. As this approach is using the GDB command line approach, it works both with an Eclipse GUI and with using GDB in command line mode only :-).
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?
Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions so far on the tinyK20 project! I’m proud to present the next iteration of the universal microcontroller & debugger board based on the Freescale Kinetis K20 USB microcontroller:
tinyK20 Board
What makes Eclipse great: using open source tools there are a lot of tools and techniques available which usually are only provided for desktop development.
A while back I described how to do code coverage with Eclipse Kepler and the GNU ARM Embedded (launchpad) tools (see “Code Coverage for Embedded Target with Eclipse, gcc and gcov“). With Kinetis Design Studio out, time to do the same with that Eclipse distribution, especially as Freescale is now using the stock GNU ARM Embedded tools too.
Coverage with multiple Files
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
Freescale has released the v3.0.0 version of the Kinetis Design Studio: this one comes with a great positive change: instead of a custom toolchain, it is coming with the standard GNU ARM Embedded (launchpad) toolchain from ARM. Beside of better code density and less RAM needed, there is one change which affects semihosting. Previously, semihosting was enabled by default in the V2.0.0 libraries. Now semihosting needs to be turned on. This post is how to do this.
Semihosting Console with Output in Eclipse
SWO (Serial Wire Output) is a cool feature defined by ARM as part of the CoreSight debug block. However, not every debug connection supports SWO, as it requries extra pins routed from the microcontroller to the debug JTAG/SWD header.
If I’m using the Segger J-Link, and if my hardware does not support SWO, I will get a dialog telling me “The connected emulator does not support serial wire output (SWO).”
The connected emulator does not support serial wire output (SWO)
In case you face problems with launching GDB: Then I have a quick solution (well: workaround): kill the GDB server and or client process. The problem can show up in many way, but in general gdb is stuck or does not respond:
GDB stuck?
But it could be an error message like this too:
Error in services launch sequence Starting J-Link GDB Server timed out.
The FRDM-K64F board as other Freescale Freedom board have an onboard debugging device. For everyone who wants to debug the FRDM-K64F board with say a P&E Universal Multilink, here is my setup in case you do not get it working out of the box:
FRDM-K64F with P&E Multilink (click to enlarge)
I very much liked the CodeRed Eclipse based IDE (see “Red Suite 5: Eclipse Juno, Processor Expert and unlimited FRDM-KL25Z“). But back in May 2013 CodeRed was acquired by NXP. I have not used much NXP devices for my projects, and as CodeRed was focusing on the NXP parts, CodeRed was not running daily on my desk any more :-(. Well, things might make a full back circle, as NXP announced back March 1st 2015 to acquire Freescale :-). And maybe as a taste how things might come out, the GNU ARM Eclipse plugin release from March 22nd 2015 includes a CodeRed debug view 🙂 🙂
CodeRed Debug Perspective in KDS
That debug perspective mimics a CodeRed debug perspective. The advantage of this Eclipse perspective is that it works very well with small screens. This post is about adding this perspective to the recently release Kinetis Design Studio v3.0.0.
MCU on Eclipse 