• Author Author: snidhi
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Challenges in interfacing ulinkplus with Keil MDK

snidhi

The list of issues to be considered when using ulinkplus debugger together with KEIL MDK.

 

  • The ARM ulink plus debugger is very new in the market and it seems many development boards are not 10 pin SWD connector compatible with the new debugger, specially the old boards. For old boards which are supported by 20 pin connector a mini- translator is needed.
  • It also does not support many of the new families of ARM devices such as XC800, µPSD, XC166/XE166/XC2000, LPC950 (8051), ARM7 and ARM9.
  • List of unsupported ARM families.

 

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  • The supported ARM families are Arm Cortex-A (32-bit), Arm Cortex-M. Many of the supported micro-controller development boards do not have a 10 pin Cortex debugger connector. They only have micro usb serial support. A translator from micro-usb to 10 pin SWD connector has to be built to interface the ARM ulinkplus debugger.
  • For the family of supported micro-controllers many development boards are from ST which need the ST debugger and Segger debugger but not the KEIL debugger.

 

        ARM Evaluation Board Comparison

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        Cortex-M Evaluation Board Comparison

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  • Also in this small list of supported devices development boards many of the sample code is not pre-complied for KEIL but for IAR or LPCXpresso software (open source Eclipse tool for NXP development boards)
  • For the old development boards with NXP micro-controllers; I was also not able to find the device startup files and compiler files. And ofcourse NXP has better support designed for LPCXpresso opensource software.
  • NXP (founded by Philips) LPC11U37/501 micro-controller is not currently supported by ULINKplus.
  • After talking to tech support of ARM in Munich for an hour I also found out that the old startup.s code which I had got pre-complied with the legacy KEIL MDK4 is not compatible with the  KEIL MDK5 version if new features such as Event Recorder and Event Statistics are to be used. The problem even exists after converting the project from MDK4 to MDK5 using the KEIL IDE. Hence you can see many errors in my Event Recorder testing window. If new features are to be used then the new device startup.s and startup.c file provided by the KEIL MDK5 in the Manage Run Time Environment Window must be used for the specified development boards. All the old startup files are to be re-done manually else the Event Statistics may not work (as in my case) and even the Event Recorder many not work 100%.

 

So in conclusion it was quite difficult to find a development board designed for ARM ulinkplus debugger which can be tested together with the Keil MDK5 uVision software for all the new cool features.

 

This Road-test is further divided into the following blogs

 

EA LPC11U37H LPCXpresso Board with ULINKPLUS

Power and Events Measurements with ULINKplus

Difficulties in interfacing ulinkplus with Keil MDK

  • in reply to keilchris

    Ok thanks; I will try it then. I hadn't used them until now because it always goes to the other page with different development boards.

     

    But nevertheless I check this out.

     

    Cheers

  • in reply to snidhi

    Hello Snidhi,

     

    yes, it should be fairly easy to exchange the device for these blinky examples. IN the Options for Target dialog, on the Devices tab, change the device to the LPC11U37H and that's it. Of course, board support code for the LEDs might need to be changed to the exact outputs on the EA board.

     

    Kind regards,

     

    Christopher

  • in reply to keilchris

    Hi Christopher Seidl;

     

    Thank you for looking into this road test review. And giving more clear explanation about the ARM ulink plus debugger and its aims. It has not been an easy one per say to work with for starters.

     

      wrote:

     

    The LPC11UU37H is supported by packs: http://www.keil.com/dd2/nxp/lpc11u37hfbd64_401

     

    I have also come across this page before but thanks for sharing. What I saw in the page is that examples are not for LPC11U37H but for other boards. Are you suggesting that these examples can be re-used for the LPC11UU37H board without issues of startup file with MDK5?

     

    image

     

     

    Please let me know then I will look into it immediately.

     

    Cheers

  • Thanks for your initial road test review of the ULINKplus and the feedback this provides. I would like to take this opportunity to reply to the concerns you raised in the hope it will support your continued evaluation of the product:

    • The ULINKplus supports all modern Arm Cortex-M/A devices. Currently, we support more than 5,000 Arm Cortex-M based devices (see www.keil.com/dd2).
    • Legacy, non-Arm architectures are generally not supported (such as XC800, µPSD, XC166/XE166/XC2000, LPC950 (8051))
    • Compared to modern Cortex-M processors, Arm7 and Arm9 architectures are not a good target for ultra-low power consumption, and thus are not supported.
    • No Arm device can directly be debugged via USB, only via the JTAG/SW interface. While many development boards already to have a circuit on-board to enable a USB connection to the PC (such as ST-Link, OpenSDA), a wide range of NXP FRDM boards do have the required 10-pin connector for ULINKplus. Also, using some wires, you can connect to the STMicroelectronics proprietary 6-pin header that is part of most Discovery and Nucleo boards (and bypass the ST-Link). This gives a wide range of development boards that you can work with (see www.keil.com/boards2).
    • Device support is today part of so called device family packs (DFP). You can add them anytime to the MDK installation using the Pack Installer (refer to http://www2.keil.com/mdk5/install). Using these DFPs, we have support (including startup and system files) for close to 2,000 NXP and STMicroelectronics devices.
    • The LPC11UU37H is supported by packs: http://www.keil.com/dd2/nxp/lpc11u37hfbd64_401