Segger J-LInk or ARM-USB-OCD-H  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: ciikucli
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2013, 09:55:53 pm
content: I'm trying to decide which of these I should get for ARM Cortex M3 and M4 debugging. I'm primarily a linux user, and I've read some scary things about how the J-Link in regards to linux drivers. THe J-Link looks to be a better debugger, but I'd like to hear you're experiences on the two.

author: andersm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2013, 10:48:30 pm
content: If you'll be using OpenOCD you probably want an FTDI FT2232-based dongle, they're the best supported by far. It also has support for J-Link, but as Segger's published documentation doesn't always correspond to the actual firmware there may be bugs. The downside with cheap FT2232 dongles is that many of them cannot support SWD debugging which can become an issue if you want to start using Cortex-M0 or M0+ parts.

author: ciikucli
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2013, 10:58:30 pm
content: I was thinking about OpenOCD. I'm a student, so that means my budget isn't super high. On the other hand, I want to learn hat will eventually be useful in a job. There seem to be a lot of options, including Coocox, Crossworks,IAR, plain Eclipse, code sourcery, and the Segger series. Can anyone give their opinion on that. I pretty much need free or cheap softwareI found an adapter for the ARM-USB-OCD-H that claims to support SWD.https://www.olimex.com/Products/ARM/JTAG/ARM-JTAG-SWD/It's supposedly pretty full featured for ~60 dollars,.

author: andyturk
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2013, 11:08:42 pm
content: I've got an ARM-USB-TINY-H from Olimex, which is probably similar. I could never get it to work though (and I use OpenOCD), so it sits in a box. The ARM chips I tend to use are from ST and I've been using the ST-LINK protocol via OpenOCD instead. That's what you use for programming any of ST's Discovery boards.Additionally, those Discovery boards turn into programmers themselves by moving a couple of jumpers. For my own boards, I just replicate the 6-line SWD connector and run a ribbon cable over. It doesn't look quite as polished, but it's cheap and it works. Plus, once you get the OpenOCD configuration working for the Discovery board, it's usually just a tweak or two to get it running on your own hardware.If you're not using ST chips, then this won't be much help.

author: ciikucli
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2013, 11:24:29 pm
content: That's interesting, but I'm primarily using NXP M4 ICs It sounds like I'd be best off with the ARM-USB-OCD-H, but I'm still not sure about the toolchain.

author: andersm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2013, 12:15:36 am
content: The GNU toolchain combined with OpenOCD is free, and has no limitations. Whose packages you use isn't really important, and several distros even offer the tools directly via their package management systems. If you want to pretty it up with an IDE there's several options for that too.You can get FT2232 dongles for far less than what Olimex are asking, but if you want support and warranty it's not too bad.

author: Harvs
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2013, 01:08:11 am
content: Just a thought, if you're using NXP do they have a small dev board with the programmer broken out?I just say that because the STM32 DISCO boards (cheapest of which is $9) has the programmer to support all their parts on a pin header, and works great with OpenOCD. May not be in a professional box, but it's worked flawlessly for me so far.

author: andyturk
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2013, 05:24:35 am
content: Quote from: Harvs on March 18, 2013, 01:08:11 amJust in case... the original VL Disco board uses ST-LINK v1, while the more recent M0, F4 and M3 boards all use ST-LINK v2, which I think enjoys a little more support from OpenOCD.

author: TheDirty
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2013, 02:11:57 pm
content: Not sure what the current status is of OpenOCD and FT2232 adapters with SWD, but I'm pretty certain you are not getting SWD with the Olimex ARM-USB-OCD.That adapter you linked earlier is specifically for use with Rowley Crossworks. I've used an FT2232 with an adapter with Crossworks, and it works, but it's slow.I now use a $20 J-Link clone and it's great. Super fast in SWD mode. Still using Rowley Crossworks.

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2013, 03:06:04 pm
content: Get the J-Link EDU; you won't regret it