The FRDM-KE17Z comes loaded with a “tsi_v5_selfmode” demo that leverages the on-board touch pads. Touch the touch pad E1 or E2, the RGB LED (D3) will turn on. Release the touch pad E1 or E2, and the RGB LED (D3) will turn off.
The MCUXpresso Software Development Kit (SDK) is complimentary and includes full source code under a permissive open-source license for all hardware abstraction and peripheral driver software.
Click below to download the FRDM-KE17Z SDK.
You can also use the online SDK Builder to create a custom SDK package for the FRDM-KE17Z using the SDK builder.
NXP offers a complimentary toolchain called MCUXpresso IDE.
Want to use a different toolchain?
No problem! The MCUXpresso SDK includes support for other tools such as IAR, Keil and command-line GCC.
Many of the example applications output data over the MCU UART so you'll want to make sure that the driver for the board's virtual COM port is installed. Before you run the driver installer, you MUST have the board plugged in to your PC.
With the serial port driver installed, run your favorite terminal application to view the serial output from the MCU's UART. Configure the terminal to 115200 baud rate, 8 data bits, no parity and 1 stop bit. To determine the port number of the FRDM-KE17Z's virtual COM port, open the device manager and look under the "Ports" group.
Not sure how to use a terminal application? Try one of these tutorials:
The MCUXpresso SDK comes with a long list of demo applications and driver examples. To see what's
available, browse to the SDK boards folder of your SDK installation and select your board, the FRDM-KE17Z (
<SDK_Install_Directory>/boards/frdmke17z).
To learn more about specific example code, open the readme.txt file in an example’s directory.
If one or more of the demo applications or driver examples sounds interesting, you're probably wanting to know how you can build and debug yourself. The Getting Started with MCUXpresso SDK guide provides easy, step-by-step instructions on how to configure, build, and debug demos for all toolchains supported by the SDK.
Use the guide below to learn how to open, build and debug an example application using the MCUXpresso IDE.
Using a different toolchain?
Let's create our own project and make a simple SDK-based application. NXP provides MCUXpresso Config Tools, which is an intuitive, simple project generation utility that allows creation of custom projects based on the MCUXpresso SDK.
Open the utility by clicking on the MCUXpresso Config Tools executable for your computer's operating system. Select "Create a new configuration and project based on an SDK example or hello world project" and click "Next" to create a new project. Then select your FRDM-KE17Z SDK installation path, select the toolchain you needed, select the SDK example to clone, select the base project directory (workspace) for your new project and name your new project. Click on the "Finish".
Your new project will be located in base project directory(workspace). Use the toolchain of your choice to open the project and start your code design.
Tera Term is a very popular open source terminal emulation application. This program can be used to display information sent from your NXP development platform's virtual serial port.
PuTTY is a popular terminal emulation application. This program can be used to display information sent from your NXP development platform's virtual serial port.
This section describes the steps required to build, run, and debug example applications provided in the MCUXpresso SDK.
Perform the following steps to build the hello_world example application.
Open the desired demo application workspace. Most example application workspace files can be located using the following path:
<install_dir>/boards/<board_name</<example_type>/<application_name>/iar
Using the FRDM-KE17Z Freedom hardware platform as an example, the hello_world workspace is located in:
<install_dir>frdmke17z/demo_apps/hello_world/iar/hello_world.eww
Other example applications may have additional folders in their path.
Select the Desired Build Target from the Drop-down Menu.
For this example, select hello_world – debug.
To build the demo application, click Make, highlighted in red in Figure 2.
The build completes without errors.
To download and run the application, perform these steps:
BOARD_DEBUG_UART_BAUDRATE
variable in the
board.h file)
In IAR, click the Download and Debug button to download the application to the target.
The application is then downloaded to the target and automatically runs to the
main() function.
Run the code by clicking the "Go" button.
The hello_world application is now running and a banner is displayed on the terminal. If it does not appear, check your terminal settings and connections.
This section describes the steps required to build, run, and debug example applications provided in the MCUXpresso SDK.
The hello_world demo application targeted for the FRDM-KE17Z Freedom hardware platform is used as an example, although these steps can be applied to any demo or example application in the MCUXpresso SDK.
After the MDK tools are installed, Cortex® Microcontroller Software Interface Standard (CMSIS) device packs must be installed to fully support the device from a debug perspective. These packs include things such as memory map information, register definitions and flash programming algorithms. Follow these steps to install the appropriate CMSIS pack.
Open the MDK IDE, which is called µVision. In the IDE, select the "Pack Installer" icon.
After the installation finishes, close the Pack Installer window and return to the μVision IDE.
Open the desired example application workspace in:
<install_dir>/boards/<board_name>/<example_type>/<application_name>/mdk
The workspace file is named <application_name>.uvmpw. For this specific example, the actual path is:
<install_dir>/boards/frdmke17z/demo_apps/hello_world/mdk/hello_world.uvmpw
To build the demo project, select Rebuild, as shown in Figure 2, highlighted in red.
The build completes without errors.
To download and run the application, perform these steps:
FRDM-KE17Z with the DAPLink interface, visit Windows serial configuration and follow the instructions to install the Windows operating system serial driver. If running on Linux OS, this step is not required.
Connect the development platform to your PC via USB cable using OpenSDA USB connector.
Open the terminal application on the PC, such as PuTTY or TeraTerm and connect to the debug serial port number . Configure the terminal with these settings:
BOARD_DEBUG_UART_BAUDRATE
variable
in the
board.h file)
In μVision, after the application is built, click the Download button to download the application to the target.
After clicking the Download button, the application downloads to the target and is running. To debug the application, click the Start/Stop Debug Session button, highlighted in red.
Run the code by clicking the Run button to start the application.
The hello_world application is now running and a banner is displayed on the terminal. If this does not appear, check your terminal settings and connections.
This section describes the steps to configure the command line Arm GCC tools to build, run, and debug demo applications and necessary driver libraries provided in the MCUXpresso SDK. The hello_world demo application is targeted for the FRDM-KE17Z Freedom hardware platform which is used as an example.
NOTE
GCC Arm Embedded 8.2.1 is used as an example in this document. The latest GCC version for this package is as described in the MCUXpresso SDK Release Notes.
This section contains the steps to install the necessary components required to build and run an MCUXpresso SDK demo application with the Arm GCC toolchain, as supported by the MCUXpresso SDK. There are many ways to use Arm GCC tools, but this example focuses on a Windows operating system environment.
Download and run the installer from GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain. This is the actual toolset (in other words, compiler, linker, and so on). The GCC toolchain should correspond to the latest supported version, as described in MCUXpresso SDK Release Notes.
The Minimalist GNU for Windows (MinGW) development tools provide a set of tools that are not dependent on third-party C-Runtime DLLs (such as Cygwin). The build environment used by the MCUXpresso SDK does not use the MinGW build tools, but does leverage the base install of both MinGW and MSYS. MSYS provides a basic shell with a Unix-like interface and tools.
Download the latest MinGW mingw-get-setup installer from MinGW.
Run the installer. The recommended installation path is C:\MinGW, however, you may
install to
any location.
NOTE
The installation path cannot contain any spaces.
Ensure that the "mingw32-base" and "msys-base" are selected under Basic Setup.
In the Installation menu, click Apply Changes and follow the remaining instructions to complete the installation.
Add the appropriate item to the Windows operating system path environment variable. It can be found under Control Panel->System and Security->System->Advanced System Settings in the Environment Variables... section. The path is:
<mingw_install_dir>\bin
Assuming the default installation path, C:\MinGW, an example is as shown in Figure
3. If the
path is not set correctly, the toolchain will not work
NOTE
If you have C:\MinGW\msys\x.x\bin in your PATH variable (as required by Kinetis
SDK 1.0.0), remove it to ensure that the new GCC build system works correctly.
ARMGCC_DIR
Create a new system environment variable and name it ARMGCC_DIR. The value of
this variable
should point to the Arm GCC Embedded tool chain installation path, which, for
this example, is:
C:\Program Files (x86)\GNU Tools Arm Embedded\8 2018-q4-major
See the installation folder of the GNU Arm GCC Embedded tools for the exact path name of your installation.
Short path should be used for path setting, you could convert the path to short path by running
command for %I in (.) do echo %~sI in above path
Download CMake 3.0.x from CMake.
Install CMake, ensuring that the option Add CMake to system PATH is selected when installing. The user chooses to select whether it is installed into the PATH for all users or just the current user. In this example, it is installed for all users.
Follow the remaining instructions of the installer.
You may need to reboot your system for the PATH changes to take effect.
Make sure sh.exe is not in the Environment Variable PATH. This is a limitation of
mingw32-make.
To build an example application, follow these steps.
Open a GCC Arm Embedded tool chain command window. To launch the window, from the Windows
operating system Start menu, go to Programs >GNU Tools Arm Embedded
Change the directory to the example application project directory which has a path similar to the following::
<install_dir>/boards/<board_name>/<example_type>/<application_name>/armgcc
For this example, the exact path is:
<install_dir>/boards/frdmke17z/demo_apps/hello_world/armgcc
NOTE
To change directories, use the cd command.
Type build_debug.bat on the command line or double click on the
build_debug.bat
file in Windows Explorer to build it. The
hello_world.elf is generated under .\debug folder.
This section describes steps to run a demo application using J-Link GDB Server application.
FRDM-KE17Z supports OpenSDA
Follow these steps to download and run the demo applications:
Connect the development platform to your PC via USB cable between the OpenSDA USB connector and the PC USB connector. If using a standalone J-Link debug pod, connect it to the SWD/JTAG connector of the board.
Open the terminal application on the PC, such as PuTTY or TeraTerm and connect to the debug serial port number. Configure the terminal with these settings:
BOARD_DEBUG_UART_BAUDRATE
variable in
board.h file)
Open the J-Link GDB Server application. Assuming the J-Link software is installed, launch the application by going to the Windows operating system Start menu and select Programs -> SEGGER -> J-Link <version> -> J-Link GDB Server.
After it is connected, the screen looks like Figure 9.
If not already running, open a GCC Arm Embedded tool chain command window. To launch the window, from the Windows operating system Start menu, go to Programs -> GNU Tools Arm Embedded <version> and select GCC Command Prompt.
Change to the directory that contains the example application output. The output can be found in using one of these paths, depending on the build target selected:
<install_dir>/boards/<board_name>/<example_type>/<application_name>/armgcc/debug
<install_dir>/boards/<board_name>/<example_type>/<application_name>/armgcc/release
For this example, the path is:
<install_dir>/boards/frdmke17z/demo_apps/hello_world/armgcc/debug
Run the arm-none-eabi-gdb.exe <application_name>.elf command. For this
example, it is arm-none-eabi- gdb.exe hello_world.elf.
Run these commands:
The application is now downloaded and halted at the watch point. Execute the
monitor go command
to start the demo application.
The hello_world application is now running and a banner is displayed on the terminal. If this does not appear, check your terminal settings and connections.
NOTE
GCC Arm Embedded 8.2.1 is used as an example in this document. The latest GCC version for this package is as described in the MCUXpresso SDK Release Notes.
This section describes the steps required to configure MCUXpresso IDE to build, run and debug example applications. The hello_world demo application targeted for the FRDM-KE17Z hardware platform is used as an example, though these steps can be applied to any example application in the MCUXpresso SDK.
Every time MCUXpresso IDE launches, it prompts the user to select a workspace location. MCUXpresso IDE is built on top of Eclipse which uses workspace to store information about its current configuration, and in some use cases, source files for the projects are in the workspace. The location of the workspace can be anywhere, but it is recommended that the workspace be located outside of the MCUXpresso SDK tree.
To build an example application, follow these steps.
Drag and drop the SDK zip file into the Installed SDKs view to install an SDK. In the window that appears, click OK and wait until the import has finished.
On the Quickstart Panel, click Import SDK example(s)…
In the window that appears, expand the KE1x folder and select MKE17Z256xxx7. Then, select frdmke17z and click Next.
Expand the demo_apps folder and select hello_world. Then, click
Next.
Ensure Redlib: Use floating point version of printf is selected if the example prints floating
point
numbers on the terminal for demo applications such as adc_basic, adc_burst,
adc_dma and adc_interrupt.
Otherwise, it is not necessary to select this option. Then, click Finish.
For more information on debug probe support in the MCUXpresso IDE, see Community.
To download and run the application, perform the following steps:
Open the terminal application on the PC, such as PuTTY or TeraTerm, and connect to the debug serial port number. Configure the terminal with these settings:
BOARD_DEBUG_UART_BAUDRATE variable
in
board.h file)
On the Quickstart Panel, click on Debug frdmke17z_demo_apps_hello_world [Debug] to launch
the debug session.
The first time you debug a project, the Debug Emulator Selection dialog is displayed, showing all supported probes that are attached to your computer. Select the probe through which you want to debug and click OK. (For any future debug sessions, the stored probe selection is automatically used, unless the probe cannot be found.)
The application is downloaded to the target and automatically runs to main().
Start the application by clicking Resume.
The hello_world application is now running and a banner is displayed on the terminal. If this is not the case, check your terminal settings and connections.