OpenOCD 0.5.0 release Windows binary download

OpenOCD 0.5.0 has been released. Here is the News.

Source zip archive or tar ball can be downloaded from SourceForge.

Windows binaries (32bit and 64bit, cross build under Linux with MinGW-w64 project's compiler) can be downloaded from Freddie Chopin's website.

You can also use my test build which is native Windows build using 32bit MinGW.org toolchain.

Take note due to GPL licensing reasons, these Windows binaries are linked against libusb-win32 and libftdi and not the proprietary FTDI D2xx library.

libftdi and OpenOCD binary download

libftdi-0.18 and libftdi-1.0 binaries and OpenOCD git binaries download
http://code.google.com/p/picusb/downloads/list

I have uploaded some Windows (32bit and 64bit) binary of libftdi and OpenOCD to my Google Code picusb page. Most of them are cross-built under Linux with MinGW and MinGW-w64. So if you have some difficulties getting them to be built under Windows, you may want to try out the binaries I built.

Updated Microchip USB Links and Microchip Stack Anomaly list

PIC USB related web sites
http://www.microchip.com/forums/m123533.aspx

PIC USB Firmware Framework Confirmed and Potential Anomalies
http://www.microchip.com/forums/m275422.aspx

The above links should help the users of Microchip USB PICs.

picusb Google code page updated

http://code.google.com/p/picusb/

I have created this page quite some time ago. But I did not put anything inside. Now I will start to put some contents inside, mainly related to some open source codes related to USB PIC MCUs.

Some files for download:
http://code.google.com/p/picusb/downloads/list

FreeBSD 8.0 First Impression

Now I used FreeBSD 8.0-Release (updated to 8.0-RELEASE-p2) and it seems to be much better than last time, especially in the USB front. I also like the freebsd-update capability. It seems to be faster than last time.

What I like compare to Linux: maybe the BSD license itself. But now I feel GPL/LGPL are not bad either.

What is not working: my SATA DVD-RW is not recognized at all. This is an Acer M1641 desktop with NVidia 620i/Geforce 7050 based chipset and FreeBSD seems to have big problems with NForce 620i and 630i.

What I do not like: the port system. I have since removed most of the packages initially installed (LXDE, KDE3, KDE 4, QT33, QT4, etc) due to the mass upgrade of libjpeg. It caused big problems to many packages. So now I have a bare-minimum Gnome 2.26 based desktop (dare not update to 2.28). Mass upgrade takes a long time and often the ports are broken. ARCH seems to do a much better job since binary updates are provided. I still like Ubuntu's package system (deb/apt, Synaptic) the best.

My libusb testing on FreeBSD: pk2cmd seems to behave like last time, but now I do not need to recompile the kernel. libusb based programs work better but there are still problems.
http://old.nabble.com/LibUSB-on-FreeBSD--current-%288.x%29-td21642051.html

My OpenOCD test on FreeBSD: FT2232D seems to work, J-Link V3 does not work. J-Link V7 seems to work. All of them works under Linux.
https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/openocd-development/2010-February/014864.html

My main interests with FreeBSD will be more libusb/MCU related -- to get OpenOCD (J-Link and FTDI, for ARM MCU development) and PICkit 2 (and other PIC related things, for PIC development) to work well under FreeBSD. Now it seems that FreeBSD is an possible platform for MCU development.

OpenOCD -- a promissing project

Project website:
http://openocd.berlios.de/web/
http://developer.berlios.de/projects/openocd

Mailing list archive
https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/openocd-development/

Forum
http://forum.sparkfun.com/viewforum.php?f=18

I started to really trying it out (with J-Link) this May. It has really progressed very fast. Before that, it did not work at all with J-Link V3. Now I can use J-Link (V3, V6 and V7) with several targets I have (STM3210E-Eval, TMS470R1A256, ADuC7060 and LPC-2148) under Linux (and Windows). I am still in the process of learning to use OpenOCD but I can see it as a very promissing project.

V0.2 is slated to be released any time now.

In the future, I would like to see a more stable J-Link driver.

On the other front, right now it used libusb 0.1 and libusb-win32 0.1 and synchronous USB I/O. In the future, maybe it can be switched to libusb 1.0 under Linux and Mac OS X and use asynchronous USB I/O to boost the performance.

For FTDI2232x based JTAG debuggers, right now it uses either FTD2XX (proprietory) or libftdi+libusb 0.1. Hopefully the features of libftdi can be improved to match the performance of FTD2xx, especailly under Windows. The situation is rather complicated under Windows due to the fact that libftdi uses libusb-win32 and libusb-win32 does not work under Vista 64 right now. Maybe WinUSB is a better solution (for XP/Vista and later).

LPC-2148 USB Isochronous Examples based on lpcusb

Today I read an interesting article from Linux Journal.
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10421

In the article, there is an interesting example of Isochrouns USB Transfer example based on lpcusb. So I use lpc21isp and download the code to my Olimex LPC-P2148 board which the developers are also using. They have also the Linux host example based on usbfs which seems to work right out of the box. Now I need to read the firmware in more detail.

There are also quite some examples from the psas site.
http://psas.pdx.edu/

lpcusb (get the svn version)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lpcusb

lpc21isp
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lpc21isp

Top 10 MCU Vendors 2008

From EETIMS

It is sad to see that quite some of them are struggling. Renesas and NEC Electronics are struggling and may combine force. Freescale and NXP are also not in good shape. Atmel and Infineon are not really much better either.

Here are some articles from EETIMES.
NEC Electronics, Renesas target next April for merger
Can Freescale beat the odds?
Will KKR inject more funds into NXP?

Microchip MCU Ethernet related links collection

http://forum.microchip.com/tm.aspx?m=382036

RTOS Links Collection for Microchip MCUs

http://forum.microchip.com/tm.aspx?m=381449

There are many interesting discussions in the Microchip Forum
about RTOS. There are also more and more RTOS produced for
Microchip MCUs, especially after the introduction of bigger
PICs like dsPIC30, PIC24, dsPIC33 and PIC32.

Embedded System LCD PC Software Links

Microchip is now offering a free Graphics LCD library for use
with PIC24/dsPIC/PIC32. It also has support from 3rd parties
like Segger and Ramtex.
http://www.microchip.com/graphics

Segger has emWin which is very powerful but not cheap.
http://microcontrollershop.com/product_info.php?products_id=640http://www.segger.com/emwin.html

Ramtex has the Font Editor and Graphic libraries for popular LCDs.
They have GLCD simulator as well. They are one of the partner for
Microchip's Graphic Library.
http://www.ramtex.dk/

This Chinese guy has a nice software called LCD Font Maker which
only cost US$. It supports many languages including Chinese.
http://lcdfontmaker.c51bbs.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

Atmel has the free LCD editor and LCD plug-in for AVRstudio.
http://www.atmel.com

Pocket MicroTechnics has the GLCD Font Creator and plugins
for SawFish/Proton Basic compiler and MikroElektronika
mikroBasic/Pascal/C compilers.
http://www.pocketmt.com/

This website has a free GLCD font generator which exports
to C compilers like WinAVR and Codevision or similar.
http://www.elvand.com/index.htm

This website has free Simulator for LCDs.
http://www.geocities.com/dinceraydin/djgfxlcdsim/djgfxlcdsim.html

lcdproc is a nice project for Linux/BSDs.
http://lcdproc.org/

There are also many examples on the internet about using
LCDs, Graphics LCDs, OLED displays with Microcontrollers.

MCU Vendor Ranks and Internet Profile

Often we will judge the popularity of Microcontrollers according to how popular they are on the internet. However this impression may not correlate well with the market ranks.

For example, the top 10 MCU vendors according to iSuppli are listed below (year 2006).
1. Renesas Technology
2. Freescale Semiconductor
3. NEC Electronics
4. Infineon Technologies
5. Toshiba
6. Microchip Technology
7. Matsushita Electric
8. Fujitsu
9. Atmel
10 Texas Instruments.

Of the 10 vendors, Freescale (HC08, HC12, 68k, ColdFire), Microchip (PIC, dsPIC), Ateml (AVR, ARM, AVR32) and TI (MSP430) are very popular from the amount of 3rd Party Internet resources. Interestingly they are all US companies. And I like to use them since they have relatively good documentations and many examples on the Internet. Better sampling policy may also contribute to their popularity. However, in reality, Japanese companies are very strong in MCU market as well. Now it seems that they are beefing up the documentation and start to offer cheaper development tools. Renesas is particularly getting better now.

With the top 10 companies, apparently Microchip is one of the smaller company in terms of turnover. But they are good at concentrating on their core competency (8bit) and branch into 16bit and lower end DSP market. Compared to a few year ago, the growth of Microchip is very remarkable. Maybe Japanese vendors should learn from Microchip by providing cheap development tools and easy sampling.

GPLed dsPIC33 MP3 Decoder Based on MAD

Finally this is done by Alex B in Microchip Forum. I am not into dsPIC much yet but I think this is really outstanding.

http://forum.microchip.com/tm.aspx?m=166133&mpage=4

Download (GPL licensed):
http://www.pic24.ru/upload/dspic_mp3.zip

It is based on MAD.
http://www.underbit.com/products/mad/

Olimex LPC-P2148 USB Under Linux/Windows

My LPC-P2148 was collecting dust after the first failure under Linux and change of job mid-2006. My NForce3 AMD64 motherboard is quite picky. The thread is here and I was not able to solve the problem.
http://www.spinics.net/lists/usb/msg05773.html

Later I found out lpcusb and jcwren's example which works fine for me. So I will start again with LPC-P2148 after some learning on the PIC USB side. Maybe I will start with modifying the lpcusb stack for bare-minimum device ( interrupt transfer, bulk transfer, generic HID like the example from LakeView Ressearch). I want to try out isochronous transfer as well as it is the base for USB audio device.

Some links:

Olimex LPC-P2148
http://www.olimex.com/dev/lpc-p2148.html

lpcusb
http://wiki.sikken.nl/index.php?title=LPCUSB

jcwren's good example
http://jcwren.com/arm/

gnuarm
http://www.gnuarm.com/

WinArm
http://www.siwawi.arubi.uni-kl.de/avr_projects/arm_projects/

H-Jtag
http://www.hjtag.com/

Startup Guide with Open Source Arm Development Tools
http://www.akamina.ca/Reports/GnuArm_Setup_Guide_1.11.pdf

AN10583: USB Audio with libmad port and EFSL
http://www.standardics.nxp.com/support/documents/microcontrollers/pdf/an10583.pdf