TASKING VX-toolset for ARM Cortex v4.0r1
Release Note

Scope

These release notes cover the changes between v3.2r1 and v4.0r1 of the TASKING VX-toolset for ARM Cortex.

Contents

• New in v4.0
• Fixed Issues in v4.0r1
• License Information

New in v4.0

This section gives an overview of the most important new features and improvements in v4.0. See the sections with fixed issues for a complete list.

Various Significant Eclipse Changes

In v4.0r1 a major overhaul in various Eclipse parts has been made to improve ease of use. A summary of the changes:

• The distribution has been updated to the Eclipse Helios release: Platform 3.6.1 and CDT 7.0.1.
• Active Project has been introduced. The project can be set to active with the right-mouse-button menu item 'Set Active Project'. Various actions such as build, rebuild, start debugger and project properties now always apply to the active project.
• It is now required to select a device at project creation time. The created project will automatically become the Active Project.
• The graphical user interface pages of the LSL editor are removed. The LSL editor is now a text-only editor.
• New properties pages have been added to make linker script settings: Project > Properties > C/C++ Build > Memory, Stack/Heap and Vector Table. The Memory page has tabs for defining Memory and Reserved areas. The settings are still stored in the project's LSL file. It is also still possible to modify the LSL file manually. Manual changes will be reflected in the property pages where possible.
• The Target Board Configuration wizard has been removed. Follow these steps for connecting to a board:
  • Select the target processor on the board when creating your project, or through the Processors properties page
  • Open the Debug > Debug configurations... dialog
  • Create a new debug configuration for your project
  • On the Debug > Execution Environment tab you can select your board
  • On the Debug > Communication Setup tab you can select what connection must be used (J-Link/J-Link and SWD or JTAG)
  Now you should be ready for debugging. Please don't forget to install the drivers required for your debug probe!
  When using a board that has external memory, the memory settings for the project can be imported through File > Import... > TASKING C/C++ > Board Configuration.
• The Flash properties page is moved and is now a child of the Run/Debug Settings properties page. The settings in the Flash properties page are solely for controlling the debugger's flasher.

The XML schema for the debug target configuration files (.dtc) has been modified to accommodate some of the changes mentioned. In case you have created a .dtc file for your own board it shall be updated accordingly.

Device Support

With v4.0r1 support for the following devices and boards have been added.

Energy Micro's Gecko 200 series and 800 series

This includes EFM32G200F16, EFM32G200F32, EFM32G200F64, EFM32G210F128, EFM32G230F128, EFM32G230F32, EFM32G230F64, EFM32G280F128, EFM32G280F32, EFM32G280F64, EFM32G290F128, EFM32G290F32, EFM32G290F64, EFM32G840F128, EFM32G840F32, EFM32G840F64, EFM32G880F128, EFM32G880F32, EFM32G880F64, EFM32G890F128, EFM32G890F32, EFM32G890F64.
Currently there is no evaluation board supported.

Cortex-R4 support

This release implements Cortex-R4 support. The compiler option -CARMv7R is available to enable code generation for the Cortex-R4. A generic Cortex-R4 device and TI TMS570 have been added to the Processor properties page in Eclipse.

The following TI TMS570LS Cortex-R4 devices are added: TMS570LS10106, TMS570LS10116, TMS570LS10206, TMS570LS10216, TMS570LS20206, TMS570LS20216. Currently there is no evaluation board supported.

The support for Cortex-R is enabled through a dedicated license key.

STMicroelectronics STM32F4xx

The following devices are now supported: STM32F405RG, STM32F405VG, STM32F405ZG, STM32F407IE, STM32F407IG, STM32F407VE, STM32F407VG, STM32F407ZE, STM32F407ZG, STM32F415RG, STM32F415VG, STM32F415ZG, STM32F417IE, STM32F417IG, STM32F417VE, STM32F417VG, STM32F417ZE, STM32F417ZG.

Hardware debugging is supported on the STM3220G evaluation board where the STM32F2xx device is replaced with a STM32F4xx device. This is only feasible on boards with a socket mounted device. Support is also added for the STMicroelectronics STM32F4 Manta Discovery Kit.

C++ compiler updated to EDG 4.2

The EDG front-end in the C++ compiler has been updated from v3.8 to v4.2. STLPort libraries and user guide are updated accordingly

Major changes include:

• Supports ISO/IEC 14882:2003
• Additional C++0x Language Features Accepted with option --c++0x
• New options:

  --auto-type	allow "auto" to be used as type specifier
  --c++0x-sfinae/--no-c++0x-sfinae	enable/disable the C++0x SFINAE rules
  --c++0x-sfinae-ignore-access/--no-c++0x-sfinae-ignore-access	allow/disallow access errors in C++0x SFINAE that make deduction fail
  --check-concatenations	check the result token of macro concatenations
  --compound-literals	allow compound literals in expressions
  --default-nocommon-tentative-definitions	do not place tentative definitions in common storage
  --defer-parse-function-templates / --no-defer-parse-function-templates	enable/disable deferral of prototype instantiations until first actual instantiation
  --no-exceptions	disable exception handling support
  --no-extended-variadic-macros	disallow extended variadic macros
  --no-lambdas	disable support for C++0x lambdas
  --no-nullptr	disable support for the C++0x "nullptr" keyword
  --no-rvalue-refs	disable support for r-value references
  --no-stdarg-builtin	disable special treatment for the stdarg.h header
  --no-variadic-macros	disallow variadic macros
  --nonstd-default-arg-deduction	retain default arguments as part of deduced function types
  --nonstd-instantiation-lookup	use C++98 rules for name lookup in template instantiations
  --nullptr	enable support for the C++0x "nullptr" keyword
  --rvalue-ctor-is-not-copy-ctor	do not treat an r-value constructor as copy constructor
  --rvalue-refs	enable support for r-value references
  --template-typedefs-in-diagnostics	replace typedef names in template diagnostics
  --uliterals	enable support for U-literals
  --unsigned-bitfields	treat "int" bit-fields as unsigned
  --vla	enable support for variable length arrays

• New attributes for the __attribute__ keyword: alloc_size, always_inline, artificial, cleanup, common, error, externally_visible, flaten, gnu_inline, hot, noinline, nonnull, nothrow, strong, tls_model, vector_size, volatile, warn_unused_result, warning, weak, weakref

C libraries included for FPU variants

All C libraries are now also available in variants for FPUs. This is required for Cortex-M4 and Cortex-R4 devices. The control program, ccarm, selects the libraries depending on the --fpu and -C/--cpu options.

CMSIS 2.00 support

With v4.0r1 support has been implemented for CMSIS 2.00. The compiler has been extended with the CMSIS DSP intrinsics and the CMSIS DSP library has been added to the cmsis directory in the product installation. Also the CMSIS header files in that directory have been updated.

Debugger support for ST-Link/V2

Support for the ST-Link/V2 debug probe has been added to the debugger and the applicable debug target configurations.

For ST-Link and ST-Link/V2, either as on-board or as separate debug probe, it is required to install drivers from STMicroelectronics. The latest version of the drivers can be downloaded from: http://www.st.com/internet/com/SOFTWARE_RESOURCES/SW_COMPONENT/SW_DRIVER/st-link_v2_usbdriver.zip

When the debugger issues the following message, it is usually an indication that the drivers are not installed or are installed incorrectly:

  Error creating session 
  The debug instrument IO could not be initialized. 
  The GDI debug instrument provided the following error message. 
  Cannot open shared library STLinkUSBDriver.dll

Support for Keil MCB1760 evaluation board

This evaluation board is now supported. See user guide for details.

Support for STM32L Discovery Kit

This evaluation board is now supported. Select the STM32L152RB for your project before creating a board configuration

Control program, ccarm, supports device selection

The control program, ccarm, now allows supplying a full device name to the -C and --cpu options. The supported devices are defined in the processors.xml file in the product's etc directory. With the device selection ccarm passes information about the used core and fpu support for code generation to the compiler and information about on-chip memory sizes, libraries and LSL file to the linker.
Example:

> ccarm -v -t --cpu=STM32F417IG hello.c
+ /usr/src/arm/dvl/linux/carm/bin/carm -CARMv7EM --fpu=VFPv4-sp -o hello.src hello.c
+ /usr/src/arm/dvl/linux/carm/bin/asarmt -CARMv7EM -o hello.obj hello.src
+ /usr/src/arm/dvl/linux/carm/bin/lkarm hello.obj -o hello.abs -CARMv7EM -D__PROC_STM32F417IG__
  -D__DEVICE_LSL_FILE=stm32f4xx.lsl -D__FLASH_SIZE=1024k -D__SRAM_SIZE=192k --map-file
  -L/usr/src/arm/dvl/linux/carm/lib/v7EM/le/VFPv4-sp -lcthumb -lfpthumb -lrtthumb

Standalone command-line script debugger included

This version of the debugger can be used to run and debug debugger scripts. This is for example useful for automatic test purposes. A separate user guide for the script debugger has been added to the product.

Select JTAG or SWD for debugging

The debugger configuration has been extended with support for selecting either a JTAG or an SWD connection.

Fixed issues for v4.0r1

New Features

• 101-37217 - Use copy attribute for copying the vector table at startup
• 101-37546 - Add support for EFM32 microcontrollers
• 101-37712 - Add CMSIS 2.00 support
• 101-37781 - Add support in ccarm for processor selection based on processors.xml
• 101-37800 - Add Cortex-R4 support
• 101-37814 - Add fpu variants for libc and libcp
• 101-37815 - ccarm must select fpu variant of libc or libcp depending on --fpu
• 101-37834 - add amk option for generating make targets
• 101-37838 - Add support for TI TMS570
• 101-37856 - Add support for Keil MCB1760
• 101-37891 - Move to Helios release, Eclipse 3.6.0 and CDT 7.0.0
• 101-37892 - Introduce 'Active Project'
• 101-37893 - Move linker script settings to properties pages
• 101-37908 - Update C++ compiler to EDG 4.2
• 101-37915 - Add support for ST-LINK/V2
• 101-37926 - Label pragmas
• 101-37948 - add command line debugger
• 101-37993 - Add priority attribute to linker
• 101-38013 - add CMSIS files and create XML SFR files for STM32F4xxx
• 101-38022 - Add support for STM32F4xx
• 101-38050 - Support STM32L Discovery Kit
• 101-38051 - Support STM32F4 Manta Discovery Kit

Improvements

• 101-37770 - __frame should also be possible for non-interrupt functions
• 101-37806 - CMSIS defines Reset_Handler as vector(1) instead of _START
• 101-37861 - Allow Enum as __interrupt qualifier argument
• 101-37934 - New debug section (.debug_str) for shared strings
• 101-37936 - Making use of the include_directories list in .debug_info sections
• 101-37949 - Update STM Connectivity Line devices (STM32F105xx/7xx)
• 101-37980 - LSL updates for new Eclipse implementation
• 101-37995 - Add and adapt long option names of amk
• 101-37998 - Update STM CMSIS files
• 101-37999 - Add possibility to select between JTAG and SWD
• 101-38007 - linker should use default.lsl instead of arm.lsl

Fixed Problems

• 101-35498 - lkarm E106 because of inconsistent types when using const qualifier
• 101-37003 - Disassembly not easy readable
• 101-37658 - stm32 bitbanding example does not run on simulator
• 101-37828 - Registers view shows question marks for certain registers when using ST-Link
• 101-37835 - When building a project results into errors, still the message 'C/C++ build completed succesfully' is displayed
• 101-37840 - Add an option to the make utility to stop the build process on error
• 101-37849 - Simulator does not check privileged mode correctly
• 101-37865 - ARM encoding for smlaXY, smlawY and smulXY is wrong
• 101-37876 - Multiple warnings W586 about unnamed struct/union fields using a default register header file
• 101-37886 - SVC interrupt handler: type checking not strict enough
• 101-37895 - Nested SVC interrupt for 7M produce incorrect code.
• 101-37897 - Cortex-M SVC implementation not bulletproof
• 101-37905 - Add the --tasking-sfr option to the ARM control program.
• 101-37912 - Default of -r/--runtime without flags misses two flags
• 101-37954 - J-Link debug error: "Error while parsing script file" when file name "settings.c" is being used.
• 101-37992 - Packed structs in C++ broken
• 101-38009 - TASKING Registers view does not show all defined registers
• 101-38017 - Linker should show a warning if the estimated stack size is larger than the allocated size
• 101-38033 - rtl static stack sections should be 32bit aligned
• 101-38038 - compiler may generate non-Thumb instruction rscs

The list of open issues for v4.0r1 can be found on the internet.

License Information

15-day Trial

When using the product without a valid license, the tools will run in trial mode. This means you can use the toolset 15 days with full functionality. When running in trial mode, each tool will report the number of days left. When using a license that does not cover the full toolset, the tools that are not covered by the license will run in trial mode.

When after installing the license file the tools that are covered by the license still report that they are running in trial mode, this means that there is a license error. If you want to force the termination of the trial mode to get the FLEXlm error message you can set the environment variable FORCE_NO_TRIAL to "yes".

How to Obtain a License Key

All TASKING products include the industry standard FLEXlm license management software. In order to be able to run this toolset, you will need a license key, although you can use the full functionality during the 15 day trial period as described above. You can only obtain a license key if you have purchased this product.

To obtain a license key, you can start the License Administrator from the program group of your installed TASKING toolset. In case you still need to install the toolset, you can start the License Administrator by setting a check mark at the end of the setup/installation process. The wizard of the License Administrator will guide you through the steps to obtain your license key.
Once you have received your license key from Altium, you can install it on your system by running the License Administrator again. Alternatively you can simply save the license key as the file 'license.dat' in the C:\FLEXLM folder on your PCs hard disk.

More information is available on http://www.tasking.com/support/flexlm. On this page you also find assistance to setup a floating network license, or for installation on Linux or Sun systems.