Using GNU compiler for Kinetis K in Codewarrior

[steve_fae]

Is there any code size or other limitations if the customer uses the GNU compiler inside 10.3?  Whats the difference with using the GNU compiler vs. Codewarrior?  Will Freescale still support it?  This is for Kinetis K. 

[Monica]

Steven, has this helped you out?

We'd like to know how is your project going.

Regards!

[steve_fae]

Project is going very well.  Basically I helped created a Kinetis L design that will control a lighting solution. Questions for the Kinetis KL05 series that are still outstanding:

1.  Can we make our own K20 open SDA programmer/debugger just like what is used on the FRDM board?  I saw some other discussions and it seems that the FRDM board is locked, i.e. the K20 expects one unique KL device only.  This would allow customers to make their own factory programmers.

2.  Bootloaders - customers would pay extra for a Kinetis L part that would support usb boot loader.  This way you have a micro usb connector on their product and it would support field upgrades.  Having only i2c bootloader available is sort of sad in that they now have to build a usb or serial to i2c converter.

3.  For 8 bit customers migrating to Kinetis L, the clock tree is very confusing.  It would be nice to have as a simple program like Excel which asked what core clock you want and what bus speed you want and it shows you the different configurations that would get you there with the FEI, FEE, FBI, FBE, BLPI, BLPE clock tree.

[BlackNight]

There is no limitation in the GNU tools itself. But for the free special edition you are limited to 64 KByte of C Code in the debugger. This is only for modules written in C. It is unlimited for Assembly, binary, intel hex or S19 files (see Flashing with a Button (and a Magic Wand)).

The 'Freescale Kinetis Compiler' is in maintance mode. The GNU compiler is the 'active' mainline of ARM compiler. That ARM compiler is coming from ARM (GCC ARM Embedded in Launchpad) and supported by Freescale. For Kinetis-L there is only GNU support. The appart of the difference that GNU tools are well, GNU like, the gcc compiler optimizes much better than the Freescale compiler. Apart of the fact that there is more functionality with all the additional GNU tools.