free keil for stm32? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: neslekkim
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2015, 05:33:33 pm
content: This looks interrestinghttp://www.st.com/web/en/press/p3669The keil seems to be only for f0 and l0, not checked the others though, and no code limits, but maybe the codesize on the chip is within the usual limits anyway?I wonder, have TI done any such colaboration with these to provide free keil etc for launchpads?

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2015, 06:02:26 pm
content: Good move for ST.Didn't seem to mention any restrictions on the chips it supports. Your issue may be due to the installation of RTE. uvision 5 is much better in that regard.Would be interesting to see if the same code works on earlier uvisions for st chips.

author: dferyance
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2015, 09:47:53 pm
content: Wow, I will have to go back to my STM32 dev board. I had one with an l0 but gave up on it as ST likes to push the costly compilers and it wasn't worth purchasing Keil. It seemed like a nice chip but I got tired of trying to work around code-size limitations or getting GCC to work. This is a good move, good development tools are key for making a product that is easy to develop for and I felt like ST was ignoring this.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2015, 10:08:30 pm
content: While the st page doesn't mean any restrictions, the mdk page does mention that it is for F0 and L0 only.Still, not bad.

author: neslekkim
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2015, 10:10:30 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on February 13, 2015, 06:02:26 pmI don't think I have any issue, english is my second language so I migth not be clear in my writingWhat I meant is that before i think it was like 32K code limit on the free version?, and I did not check if there are f0 or l0 chips that have more than 32k

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2015, 10:11:58 pm
content: Quote from: neslekkim on February 13, 2015, 05:33:33 pmNone that I'm aware of. Though their own Code Composer Studio is free for use with launchpads and it competes with Keil - so I'm not sure why they would want to.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2015, 10:19:00 pm
content: QuoteThere are.

author: dferyance
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2015, 02:57:19 am
content: I have the STM32 discovery kit with epaper (http://www.st.com/web/catalog/tools/FM116/SC959/SS1532/LN1848/PF260319?sc=stm32l0-discovery) which has a L0 64kb of flash. The funny thing is, the demo program that comes loaded on the board compiles to more than the 32kb that the keil evaluation supports. So I was disappointed to get my dev kit, hook it up but cannot even compile the hello world (to be fair it does a lot of stuff) application. That gave me a very bad impression of STM32 off the bat.I revisited the dev board and the demo program compiles fine with the new free license.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2015, 03:30:49 am
content: Quote from: dferyance on February 14, 2015, 02:57:19 amhave a look at emblocks IDE, you can select GCC as the compiler, then it will compile anything you want for free. It also supports lots of stm32 stuff and discovery boards right out of the box. You just select what board you have and it works.

author: dferyance
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2015, 05:01:24 pm
content: QuoteI did that as well as a few other embedded IDEs (CooCox). It worked but I couldn't compile the STM32 sample code. It depended on compiler options that I wasn't sure how to mimic for GCC. I ended up having to start from scratch with a blank project and couldn't use their Cube tool. Maybe I am picky but the best development boards are ones that are easy to get up and running without having to search for tools or hack something together. I am used to Cypress PSoc, or Microchip pic where there is a clearly supported IDE to get up and running. Learning curve does matter when evaluating a product. At least for the STM32 development board I have, that was a big problem but it looks like they did a great job resolving it. Most of the free IDE's depend on GCC but here they have a proprietary option for free as well. I hope they update the documentation and make it clear that they have these great new options.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2015, 09:06:37 pm
content: QuoteIt is fairly easy to set up a project in any of those modern IDEs. While the specifics of the set-up differ from IDE to IDE, the basics are identical.Of them all, I really like CoIDE for its ease to set up a project.

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2015, 10:57:23 pm
content: QuoteLearning about translating compiler/build options, and other "tool idiosyncrasies" is a pretty fundamental part of embedded systems programming. The days when an "analyst" could hand off rough-written programs to a "coder" and have all the messy syntax and JCL issues ironed out (followed by the keypunch operator actually typing it in) are pretty much long over.(I suppose that it's an open question as to how much of that you want to do during an "evaluation." The compiler vendors are of course quite enthusiastic about you seeing how wonderful their compiler is when used for the examples, and how messy it is to try to move that to some other inferior compiler. Writing firmware to be relatively tool-independent is also a useful art, but not something that compiler vendors are anxious to demonstrate.)(Hmm. Don't the ePaper ST dev kits ship with example written for IAR tools?)

author: dferyance
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2015, 11:56:44 pm
content: Any tool that is reasonably powerful will have a learning curve. It is often worth the extra time to be really good at it. It is often a myth to think that a complex program can be made simple to use. But when trying out a development kit, I pretty much want to plug it in and go. Having an easy way to compile the sample project is part of that. I have development boards for many other micros that are that way.It has been a little while since I tried out the different options but I think you are right about support IAR for the ePaper kit. It had the same 32kb limitation though. I did modify the sample code and get it working on 32K.Being a software engineer who has worked for a few different companies that sold hardware tools maybe I am a bit more picky than most. I have seen the mentality of concentrating on the hardware and having supporting software be an afterthought. It can be understandable and even justified at times but it happens way too often. I think when I see companies doing this I judge them more harshly.