MQX on Kinetis

[fredb]

Hi All,

Has anyone out there used MQX on a real world project on a Kinetis?  Any feedback on how well it works, what the support is like etc?  Also, what is the long term roadmap for MQX, will it be around in 10 years time?

Thanks,

Fred

[gtoph]

I'm in the process of using MQX on a K20 now.  So far so good, though the support for all Kinetis series in 3.7 is still very incomplete.  Only the K40 & 60 tower boards are more or less offically supported, and not all HW features are supported or have examples (DMA for example).  For any other Kinetis, you have to piece the BSP & PSP togeather from the included tower support.... not the easiest, but doable.

Most the IO drivers inlclude a lot of overhead (which isn't really a problem with MQX as it needs to provide code verfication) so for more critical things, I just access the HW directly.  For non-critical items you can use the MQX drivers;  I'm using their SPI & UART drivers for example.

Hope that helps a little.

[fredb]

Thank you, that is helpful.  One more thing, are you using paid for Freescale tech. support for MQX, if so, do they offer good support?

[gtoph]

I haven't paid for offical tech support, so I can't answer that.  I have been going through a couple of local freescale guys for anything that comes up.  Might be worth it for offical support though, expecially since they don't seem to have anyone full time on these forums.

[JWW]

All:

Couple of items for you on this thread.. Really good questions.

1. MQX availability.  Freescale MQX is available and will be available for many years to come.  Just like our silicon we expect customers to use our products for decades.  We can't promise any particular longjevity on the software, but we can say we have every intention to support and drive continual improvments with no intent to stop and no reason to, as our customer base has been very supportive and we've enjoyed working closely with our customers on new features and plans.  So we are expecting this to be here to stay.

2. We do have some outside partners that are available for services work and provide a redundent "channel" to get access to MQX improvements add-ons etc..  Embedded Access is has access to the Freescale technology and we work closely together in customer support etc.  So you can always leverage them if you want to deal directly with a third party software company.

3. We made some major tech improvements starting with MQX 3.7.. In traditional embedded software form.. the older BSPs delivered in a release were typically focused on common drivers and use cases around particluar hardware.  In 3.7 we added support for Processor Expert.  Today Processor Expert is a device init and software managment tool in one, that is deployed in the CW install.  For customers using Processor Expert, they can actually configured and deploy a comprehensive set of drivers that can be made "RTOS" aware by dragging the MQX component from the toolkit into your project.  This teaches the drivers how to be MQX drivers and allows the drivers to work well together.

FTF is in a couple of weeks, and we'll have more information about how this works during that event.  I encourage anyone interested in MQX and extensive driver support to attend the event and get some nice hands on training or access to experts that can spend some 1:1 time with you.

For those that are not using CW.  We are working on Processor Expert solution for you as well... COMING SOON.

CW and PE are free to try.  Please go and download CW 10.1 if you'd like to see more.  There are some PE based examples for Kinetis located in the training tab for CW 10.1.  So good materials in here to help you get started.

Codewarrior 10.1 Training TAB with Processor Expert Examples

For those reading this thread and have used PE in the past.  Try it again.  Lots of new features and a whole new array of DRIVER librariies for kinetis.  Really comprehensive and all fully RTOS capable with automatic conversion to support MQX.

For those that don't want to install CW but want to see examples of what I mean by comprehensive drivers.

Check out the new INFOCENTER.

Some good links for you:

Codewarrior 10.1 InfoCenter

Once your on this site click on tree on the right until you get to the component libraries.  Anything with an _LDD is a fully functional driver with a fully documented interface.  Let us know what you think.

I've attached a picture to show location of tree and windows that need to expand.

Hope this helps

-JWW