Help on ARM Cortex-M3 Development Tools / IDE - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2011, 04:12:31 am
content: it seems i got stuck while searching for Altera CPLD Programmer. ARM Dev Kit came across my eye, very hard to get rid. so i'm asking the"best"programmer, dev kit and IDE. while googling/ebaying i've found this, is it ok or not? hope to hear some suggestions.1)KEIL Ulink2 Debug Adapter ARM emulator compatible USB JTAG2)ST-LINK STM8 STM32 MCU debugger programmer3)ARM Workbench IDE4)KEIL MDK-ARM Microcontroller Development Kit5)Mini STM32 Board STM32F103VCT6+3.2 LCD+Touch Panel JTAG6)1G Nand Flash Mini2440 Arm9 S3C2440 + 3.5" touch screenwhich to choose? (1 or 2) & (3 or 4) & (5 or 6). and again dont miss it, i'm asking suggestions for the "best"in your opinion, the "best"!

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2011, 04:35:58 am
content: there's another programmer called jlink. i'm not sure how many type/brand are out there. the seller i asked who sell arm kit said he sell jlink programmer and ulink2 but not sure why not in his listing. he said jlink can be used by many IDE, but ulink2 only be used by keil IDE, is it true? how varied are they from brand to brand (jlink)? i only found segger brand jlinkhttp://www.segger.com/cms/jlink.htmlbut not sure if this is the seller talking about. he quoted Jlink: $28.5, Ulink2: $42.5

author: eliocor
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 30, 2011, 06:37:48 am
content: J-Link is a really good/fast JTAG programmer but I think you are referring to a cloned one! To my knowledge its price is a BIT higher!!!

author: Neganur
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 30, 2011, 09:06:03 am
content: While I cannot help you decide, I'd like to mentionthe ST-LINK/V2 in-circuit debugger/programmer for STM8 and STM32.There'san official distributorwho sells it for 25$ (ships with FedEx, I paid like 8$).

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2011, 10:38:47 am
content: Quote from: eliocor on June 30, 2011, 06:37:48 amyes ther seller confirmed this. the original will cost thousand according to him.Quote from: Neganur on June 30, 2011, 09:06:03 amnow which is better? st-link? or jlink? assuming its original, or the cloned that behaved like the original.

author: PsI-On
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2011, 11:05:58 am
content: The Segger J-Link is better; it will work with most of the ARM compilers/IDEs like Keil, IAR etc...I have a $10 clone from china and it works just fine-PsI

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2011, 11:29:01 am
content: ok thanx guys. i think i'll get the jlink clone, decide which ide later, and cheaper #5 dev kit to learn.

author: Neganur
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 30, 2011, 12:53:04 pm
content: Consider the genuineSegger J-Link EDU. It costs 49,98 EUR for non-commercial use (instead of buying a clone).

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2011, 03:05:11 pm
content: thanx for the link. maybe good for the next buyer who will come across here. but i've made the order. with EDU tag, i'm skeptic the will be limitation?

author: Neganur
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 30, 2011, 08:12:19 pm
content: As far as I understand, the only limitation is that it may not be used to develop a product.This version is meant to fight off the cloning.Quote from their website:Quote

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2011, 11:59:06 pm
content: Quote from: Neganur on June 30, 2011, 08:12:19 pmQuotewhat the hell?! we pay more (pro version) just to be able to sell our product? fucking imf style!with clone i'm not bounded with this shitty.

author: TheDirty
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2011, 12:12:42 am
content: The benefit of the J-Link is it supports both JTAG and SWD.Let me know how the clone works out.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2011, 04:30:10 am
content: ok boss. still waiting from seller for tracking number. maybe weekend catch them, so have to wait next monday. and then later when the things arrived, i have to struggle with the learning curve.

author: TheDirty
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2011, 03:28:56 pm
content: Did you decide on an IDE/Compiler? The only non-limitation free one is Eclipse/GCC/OpenOCD. You're going to have a tough time getting that thing going. I gave up on it and paid $150 for the non-commercial version of Rowley Crossworks.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2011, 05:44:31 pm
content: Quote from: TheDirty on July 02, 2011, 03:28:56 pmno not yet. deciding right now is like searching in the dark without having anything to program, debug and upload. its still open and i will appreciate and will try any suggestions when my programmer arrived. thanks.

author: joelby
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2011, 11:35:55 am
content: There's an interesting list of ARM JTAG interfaces here:http://www.sharebrained.com/2011/07/01/open-jtag-interfaces/

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2011, 06:44:25 pm
content: Quote from: TheDirty on July 02, 2011, 12:12:42 ami just got my jlink prorammer and usb blaster. took pictures below, installed the segger software, it seems to detect this clone. ask to upgrade the firmware should i proceed? i'm afraid it will crash? havent program anything yet, need to learn first.even the segger name on pcb is clonedi'll come back to this thread to study later. thanks everybody for input so far. i'll update when i got something programmed.

author: PsI-On
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2011, 09:34:02 pm
content: My jlink clone updated the firmware from v7 to v8 with no problems...PsI

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2012, 03:38:09 pm
content: ok resurrecting my old thread... now i got this CooCox CoIDE suggested by andyg in another thread. downloaded the devProKit for ARM toolchain earlier. set it in CoIDE and it seemed to just work without much hassle. but it only just the beginning since i only create Hello Project, it automated creating this arm boot startup code, CooCox OS, C library etc, i dont have any idea. anyway, but cool!... but anyway, i'm asking you arm developers guys... what do you use to develop your ARM software? please suggest both the IDE and toochain. thanks..fyi: i downloaded few "clusters" of the sdk/toolchain etc, but i'm having a hard time putting them together with netbean, eclipse and programmers notepad.for eg, library that came with my dev board kit... HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5.zipF:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\RTC+USARTF:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\SysTickF:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\TempF:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\TIMF:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\TouchPanelF:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\uCOSII2.91F:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\uCOSII2.91+UCGUI3.90A(FSMC)F:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\USARTF:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\USB-Mass_Storage-SD CardF:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\WWDGF:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\EXTI+USARTF:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\FATFS V0.08A-SD CardF:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\FlashF:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\FreeRTOSV6.1.0F:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\GLCDF:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\GPIOF:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\IDF:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\IWDGF:\HY-MiniSTM32V 2011.1.5\PWR(no idea where to start)devprokit(arm)nuttx-6.18 rtosplease advice and guide on ARM programming. thanks.

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2012, 06:17:34 pm
content: I'm using CooCox (1.4.2) with the official Arm GCC 4.6 toolchain (arm-none-eabi-gcc-4_6-20111208) for development with an NXP LPC1768. In earlier versions there were bugs which made it hard to impossible to debug with J-Link and I therefore used other toolchains, but currently it works pretty well.I don't use CoOs since I don't need it and it's said to not work for any optimization level other than -O0. Anyway, a time based scheduler with some priority wrapping is good enough for me. Talking of code optimization, the created code is pretty bad even at higher optimization levels, yet with higher levels, debugging becomes more or less a pain in the @ss.The CooCox libraries are a good base to start, but they don't seem to have a common architecture and generally I prefer interfaces as lean as possible. So write my own mini libraries which tend to sacrifice abstraction for performance.As a side note, I also used the Keil uVision to fix issues in the USB bootloader. Especially the debugger is quite a bit better than that of CooCox, but the code limit makes it unusable for even medium projects.

author: calin
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 03:34:14 am
content: I probably have the same JLink clone .. works like a charm, upgraded firmware .. and using it under Linux.BTW, if you want an STLink 2 cheap0 grap one of the STM32 Discovery boards from ST. They even gave them away for free (in US and Canada true) but they also sell them for something like 7$ a piece. Look here:http://www.st.com/internet/evalboard/product/253215.jspYou get also a basic DEV board with an Cortex M0 (STM32F0xxx) or you can go "bad" and get an Cortex M4 boardhttp://www.st.com/internet/evalboard/product/252419.jsp.. but that is like 14$.From what I know StLink works only with ST chips and knows only SWD. JLink works a treat with ST mcus

author: quint
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 05:40:24 am
content: The ATM discovery boards actually work with other cortex m3 chips. At least I've gotten them to work as programmer/debugger for lpc1343 cortex m3. The latest builds of openOCD (v.6) support stlink v2 protocol so you can use, for example, the stm32f0 discovery board as a cheap programmer right out of the box. See this post for info:https://github.com/mossmann/hackrf/wiki/LPC43xx-Debugging

author: calin
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 05:03:21 am
content: Nice .. actually it does make sense to work the STLink uses SWD which is standard (not JTAG). Just that the STLink USB protocol was not known. I had no idea stlink was added in OpenOCD ... I knew only about this projecthttps://github.com/texane/stlink. I got this one working with an STM32F discovery board (cortex M4) .. able to program and debug. But OpenOCD is much better .. nice find.Still JLink is a really nice tool to have around if you work with ARM stuff. I love it, fast, so far reliable. The thing works a treat under linux .. coupled with Linaro-s GCC toolchain builds for arm you get a pretty decent "development environment" right there.

author: electroguy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 05:12:11 am
content: has anyone tried Atollic?http://www.atollic.com/index.php/targets/armtargetsupportjust wondering how it compares to coocox?unfortunately the free version has a 32kb limitation i think?

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 04:47:05 pm
content: Quote from: electroguy on July 05, 2012, 05:12:11 am$2595? you must be kidding a person like me. now i got a rough picture of what the keil arm tool cost like, as i havent got a quotation from them, keep asking bullshit questions and countless of broken download from their site. thanks for the advice anyway, i'll give it a try... downloading...

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 05:04:52 pm
content: That SEGGER J-Link doesn't look like a clone. Are you sure it isn't an official product? I purchased the J-Link-EDU from digikey but never had a chance to use it yet.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 05:37:04 pm
content: Quoteif this question is directed at me then. i'm pretty sure, since (1) i got this from china, (2) cheap and (3) the seller admitted it is a clone. as i dont have any "hardground" toolchain and project yet, so this unit is still "untested" other than detection test by segger jlink uploader SW iirc months ago.i'll be glad olsenn if you can make teardown of you original jlink-edu and post pictures here or somewhere else as you like.

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 06:30:31 pm
content: QuoteThere are pictures on Google. The one you show there is identical to the real ones. Even the ones sold to other companies like Atmel (SAM-ICE) are identical in terms of layout. Have a look.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2012, 04:16:50 am
content: Quote from: Mechatrommer on July 05, 2012, 04:47:05 pmreally, someone should justify the $2K+ for something similar looking as CooCox, eclipse or netbeans (my 1st impression). if they dont start learning what proper "MDI" is, i believe sooner or later they will be out of business or find another hobby.@olsenn: a link or keyword might be usefull. i tried but my "keyword" didnt give me any usefull picture, except this, which still not sure original or clone (i got more ram (or level shifter?) in the chip)http://www.jstuber.net/lego/nxt-programming/jlink-internal-picture.html(click the thumbnail for bigger picture)