I’m using Eclipse based IDE’s to develop and debug my embedded applications. This works great, as Eclipse has all the necessary tools to edit, build and debug it. But when it comes just to download/flash a binary to the board, then things are pretty much specific to the tools used. With the advent of the new MCUXpresso IDE, here is how that Eclipse IDE can be used for this.
LinkServer GUI Flash Programmer
I believe in ‘life-long-learning’. With this I continue to learn and discover new things every day. I’m writing tutorials to give something back to the community from which I have learned so much.
On top of this, I receive emails on a nearly daily basis, asking for help. Many articles have the origin in such requests or questions. I prefer questions or comments in a public forum, because that way I feel all others can benefit from it. Last week Alessandro contacted me with this:
“Hi Erich,
I hope this find you well! I’m starting to using ARM processors, but I find them quite complicated on the configuration side. I started in the past with PIC micro (PIC16) with asm, and I found them quite straightforward to be configured (clock, IO, peripherals, …). Then I moved myself on C language, and on PIC18 without any big issues.
Now I would really like join the ARM community, I see that these processors are what I’ve always looking for, on energy, calc power, peripherals, and FINALLY on IDE (editor, toolchain and utilities)… AMAZING!!!”
The topic is about how to start learning developing for ARM. Alessandro agreed to make this public, so I thought this might be a good topic for an article?
Firmware
One of the most important aspects of the ‘IoT’ world is having a secure communication. Running MQTT on lwip (see “MQTT with lwip and NXP FRDM-K64F Board“) is no exception. Despite of the popularity of MQTT and lwip, I have not been able to find an example using a secure TLS connection over raw/native lwip TCP :-(. Could it be that such an example exists, and I have not found it? Or that someone implemented it, but has not published it? Only what I have found on the internet are many others asking for the same kind of thing “running MQTT on lwip with TLS”, but there was no answer? So I have to answer my question, which seems to be a good thing anyway: I can learn new things the hard way :-).
Block diagram MQTT Application with TLS using lwip
MQTT is a lightweight and broadly used internet protocol (see “MQTT with lwip and NXP FRDM-K64F Board“). And probably the majority of IoT applications today are using Mosquitto as server (or ‘broker’ in MQTT language). By default, Mosquitto is using a protocol without encryption. In “Introduction to Security and TLS (Transport Layer Security)” I have covered the basics and needs for encryption. This article is about how to enable Mosquitto and clients to use the TLS protocol.
TLS Handshaking with certificates and keys
In “MCUXpresso IDE: Importing Kinetis Design Studio Projects” I explained how Kinetis Design Studio projects can be imported and used inside the MCUXpresso IDE. Processor Expert projects can be used, but no new components added, modified or new Processor Expert projects created. To fully use Processor Expert, two plugins need to installed, and this is what this article is about.
Processor Expert in MCUXpresso IDE
Many of my currently active projects are using Kinetis Design Studio (KDS) V3.2.0 from NXP (I have published many of my projects on GitHub). Now with the advent of the MCUXpresso IDE (see “MCUXpresso IDE: Unified Eclipse IDE for NXPs ARM Cortex-M Microcontrollers“), I have migrated several projects from KDS to MCUXpresso. This post is about how to easily get KDS projects ported and running in MCUXpresso IDE.
Debugging KDS Project in MCUXpresso IDE
For me, the available software and tools are the primary key decision factor why I select a particular silicon vendor. Without good software and tools, a microcontroller only ‘sand in plastic case’, even if it is the best microcontroller in the world. I do have several probably excellent microcontroller boards, and they are only getting touched by more durst over the months and years.
Undusted LPC824 Board
This is another article about the NXP MCUXpresso IDE (see “MCUXPresso IDE: Unified Eclipse IDE for NXPs ARM Cortex-M Microcontrollers“), this time it is about Post-build steps. Post-build steps are custom actions which can be executed after the build (or link phase), and are typically used to generate S-Record, Binary or Intel Hex files (see “S-Record, Intel Hex and Binary Files“).
Post Build Steps Details
There are many mergers going on in the industry, and one of the largest one was in 2016 the integration of Freescale Semiconductor with NXP Semiconductors, with both providing Eclipse based IDE’s to their customer base. Consequently, the company merger triggered a merger of the IDE’s, and last week NXP has released the result: the MCUXpresso IDE.
MCUXpresso IDE
To me, software and tools are by far more important than the microcontroller. Because the silicon is a ‘one time kind of thing’, where the software has to be maintained and working over a longer time. And at least my software usually needs to be ported to a new device, so portability and available software and tools are critical to me.
The combination of MCUXpresso SDK (formerly Kinetis SDK) and Processor Expert is unfortunately not supported by NXP. But I have found a way to get them work together in a nice way, and this article is about making that combination possible :-).
SDKv2 Project with Processor Expert which is supposed not to work together
MCU on Eclipse 