Developing without an IDE
Oldřich Pecák, oldrich.pecak@mail.muni.cz
Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University
January 9, 2021
Motivation
Motivation
Why go IDE-less?
spinning up the whole IDE is time consuming
more portable in theory
better control over the build process
easier CI setup
easier collaboration setup
preference
O. Pecák ·Developing without an IDE ·January 9, 2021 2 / 13
Build and debug process
What happens in the background?
1. compilation is mostly same as normal cross-compilation with
few notable "quirks"
2. the code needs to uploaded/flashed/written to the target1
2.1 connect to the target
2.2 wipe the memory of the target
2.3 upload the compiled binary
2.4 (optional) verify the uploaded binary
3. debug the target
3.1 connect to the target
3.2 (optional) upload the binary
3.3 reset the target to get to known state
3.4 debug - either stepping through, waiting for breakpoints etc.
1
the device we are programming
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Tools
Required tools
Overview
editor of your choice
compilation toolchain
debug probe software
auxilary tools like cmake, make, etc.
usually also SDK/HAL from manufacturer for your MCU
O. Pecák ·Developing without an IDE ·January 9, 2021 4 / 13
Tools
Required tools
Toolchain
nowadays usually GCC based
there are also proprietary paid compilers
cross-compiling - you compile for different architecture
often baremetal - no OS and it’s API
no dynamic linking, more often than not no standard library
for CMake, you usually have to provide a toolchain file
another quirk are linker scripts - provide linker with information
on where to place what
...and startup scripts - somewhat scary looking ASM or low level
C code - it’s the code that calls main()
O. Pecák ·Developing without an IDE ·January 9, 2021 5 / 13
Tools
Required tools
Uploading the code
very specific for each manufacturer, each has different tools
multiple ways you can get the binary into the memory
use some kind of a bootloader
directly upload to the external memory chip via separate
hardware uploader
in large scale production, you might even get the MCUs
preprogrammed from the manufacturer
usually the debug tools also can upload the code
O. Pecák ·Developing without an IDE ·January 9, 2021 6 / 13
Tools
Required tools
Debugging
each MCU architecture may have different debugging protocol
modern ARM MCUs support JTAG almost universally
ARM-based MCUs also support SWD - Single Wire Debug
you need a debug probe that supports the protocol of your target
common debug probes are from the manufacturer, or SEGGER
J-Link, PEMicro for general use
high-end debug probes also often support realtime tracing
for debugging via GDB, the debug probe connects to the target
and acts as a GDB server to which you connect
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Tools NXP
NXP
Overview
SDK
MCUXpresso SDK2
can export a CMake project
the Config Tools we used are also a standalone application
Compilation
GNU ARM Embedded GCC Toolchain3
provides arm-none-eabi toolchain
Upload and debug
the K66F dev board we used has onboard OpenSDA debug probe
you need PEMicro’s OpenSDA drivers for that (but J-Link also
works)
for custom boards, LPC-Link2 can be used as debug probe
2
https://mcuxpresso.nxp.com
3
GNU ARM Toolchain(link)
O. Pecák ·Developing without an IDE ·January 9, 2021 8 / 13
Tools NXP
NXP
Practical example
https://gitlab.fi.muni.cz/xpecak/cube_fw
O. Pecák ·Developing without an IDE ·January 9, 2021 9 / 13
Tools Other manufacturers
Other manufacturers
STM
most of their MCUs are ARM Cortex-M 32bit based
STM32Cube SDK/HAL
STM32CubeMX for code generation, can generate make project
provide compiler toolchain for their STM8 line
STLink debug probe (works with J-Link)
O. Pecák ·Developing without an IDE ·January 9, 2021 10 / 13
Tools Other manufacturers
Other manufacturers
Microchip
the PIC/AVR family is bit of a mess - multiple compilers, various
proprietary debug protocols, they are slowly merging together
the SAM line is based on ARM Cortex-M
SDK depends on line
multiple various debuggers - PICKit, ICD, Atmel-ICE, MPLAB
Snap
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Tools Other manufacturers
Other manufacturers
Other
in general, manufacturers with MCUs based on Cortex-M cores
are easy to develop
otherwise each manufacturer has specific toolchain and debug
tools
nowadays almost every manufacturer provides an SDK/HAL for
quick developement
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PlatformIO
PlatformIO
can setup the whole toolchain from config file
support for many architectures, SDKs
both an IDE (based on VSCode) and CLI platformio-core
https://platformio.org/
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