How to use Kinetis Design Studio!!

Getting the hands on an embedded project has always been exciting for me. So, here I am again with my blog trying to provide you with an easy to use guide for the Kinetis Design Studio 3.0.0 (KDS_3.0.0). Well, as you all know I am an intern at Freescale working for the first time on KDS, I will tell you what all we can do to start working on it with a perspective of a novice. But personally I feel KDS is one of the most encouraging IDE you can work on. So how do I start with my code for our NeoMatrix board? I am currently working with one of the demo codes for the NeoMatrix:

https://mcuoneclipse.com/2015/07/10/lets-play-with-freescale-frdm-k64f/

So, my first task is to write the code in KDS for the NeoMatrix_Demo. How do I do that? After opening the KDS 3.0.0, I need to go to File and select New and then Kinetis Project. You can see that the New Kinetis Project wizard appears once you click the File>New> Kinetis Project. Type a name and click next.

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Getting to know FRDM-K64F and more!! :)

I believe waiting makes you feel more impatient. So here I am, waiting for my NeoMatrix 8×8 – 64 RGB LED Pixel Matrix to arrive, so that we can begin working on our cool project. But looking on the brighter side, I got some time to make the beforehand preparations for our Signboard project. I took the opportunity to invest this time in finding out how to start running the Adafruit NeoMatrix with Kinetis FRDM-K64F development board. We should definitely get ourselves ready with something so that we can test NeoMatrix with FRDM-K64F as it arrives. So I thought of setting up a repository where we can turn back anytime we feel we are stuck.

document-management-software

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Let’s play with Freescale FRDM-K64F

Hello Again!

In my previous blog I talked about the new getting started process for Kinetis FRDM-K64F development board. Here I am with my next blog going one step further and introducing you to the target application that I have planned for this summer using the awesome FRDM K-64 development board from Freescale. I am planning to work on some really cool stuff that we can do from this board. And I came up with an idea for making an Adafruit NeoPixel NeoMatrix Signboard!!adafruit LED

Wait….does it sound boring to you? Nah… we are not planning some ordinary signboard. This Adafruit NeoPixel NeoMatrix signboard is really cool. It will display what you want to display and it will change the displayed text with just the movement of your hand. Sounds interesting now?? Continue reading

FreeRTOS Continuous Trace Streaming

Key to successfully implementing embedded applications these days is to have detailed visibility into what is going on with the application on the board. For this, I’m using the FreeRTOS+Trace from Percepio to inspect the runtime behaviour. Stop-Mode debugging is very useful, but visibility into the runtime is even more important. FreeRTOS+Trace is a tool to accomplish this, but it requires to dump the data off the target to the host (see “Updated Percepio Tracealyzer and Trace Library to Version V2.7.0“). Usually, I’m using the GDB debugger for this, and that works for shorter trace sequences like a few seconds. Yes, I can combine them, but it painful to stop, dump and continue. So what if I could collect trace for several minutes or hours without the need to stop the application? Why not stream the data to the host directly?

So here is it: I’m now able to get almost unlimited trace streaming off the target, witout user intervention. I can trace my application for hours 🙂

Trace Recording

Trace Recording for almost one hour

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Tutorial: Using Processor Expert and FreeRTOS with Kinetis SDK V1.2

Freescale has released the new Kinetis SDK v1.2 back in May. Because of the changes in v1.2, previous applications (or my tutorials) do not work any more :-(. So time to write a new tutorial: how I can use Processor Expert with FreeRTOS for the Kinetis SDK v1.2.

Blinky Task with FreeRTOS and Kinetis SDK in KDS v3.0.0

Blinky Task with FreeRTOS and Kinetis SDK in KDS v3.0.0

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Getting started with Kinetis FRDM- K64F: New and Better!! :)

Hello all!

Here is my second blog about the Kinetis MCU development boards, introducing you to the new and more informative Getting Started process for Kinetis FRDM-K64F from Freescale. As a part of my internship I got the amazing opportunity to play with the ‘New Getting Started’ process and the most recent box of the FRDM-K64F development board from Freescale.

Freescale have been working all along to make the life of its customers easier. So, at the FTF 2015 we launched the new website:

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=FRDM-K64F&tab=In-Depth_Tab

This website is for the new Getting started process for FRDM K-64F. This website will tell you all that you will need to start the FRDM K-64F development board. Continue reading

Using Segger Real Time Terminal (RTT) with Eclipse

I have used semihosting more and more in my projects. However, there are several disadvantage of using it:

  • Without special handlers, it only works with an active debug connection going on. Without a debugger attached, the application blocks otherwise.
  • Because it needs debugger interactions, it is rather slow (only several hundreds of bytes per second)

The good news is that Segger supports with their debug probes a faster approach with what they name Real Time Terminal (RTT). And it even runs without a debugger attached to the board: all what I need is a Segger J-Link probe (or Segger J-Link OpenSDA) plus a telnet client.

Segger RTT Viewer

Segger RTT Viewer

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Merging NXP LPCXpresso IDE with Freescale Kinetis Design Studio, Processor Expert and Kinetis SDK

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

LPCXpresso v7.7.2 with Processor Expert and Kinetis SDK

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Debugging the FRDM-K64F with P&E Multilink

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

FRDM-K64F with P&E Multilink (click to enlarge)

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CRC Checksum Generation with ‘SRecord’ Tools for GNU and Eclipse

One of the things missing for Embedded in the GNU linker is that it cannot generate a CRC checksum. Luckily, there is the solution of using SRecord:

SRecord 1.64 Web Page
SRecord 1.64 Web Page
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