Programming a microcontroller without IDE

[MarcoGiammarini]

Dear,

I have a question (maybe stupid): It is a lot of times that I develop my project with MCUXpresso and when the board go in production, I still program the board with MCUXpresso and the project opened. I think is not the correct way, with other microcontrollers I use a specific tool where I can download directly the hex file. Is there a similar tool for NXP, in particular the Kinetis series?

Regards

Marco

[mjbcswitzerland]

Hi

If your Kinetis part has eZport it is also possible to use that to program boards in  production environment, whereby boards can be used to clone their programs to new, un-programmed boards, which can be very efficient since it doesn't require any further tools:

See https://www.utasker.com/docs/uTasker/uTaskerEzPortCloner.pdf

Regards

Mark
[uTasker project developer for Kinetis and i.MX RT]
Contact me by personal message or on the uTasker web site to discuss professional training, solutions to problems or rapid product development requirements

For professionals searching for faster, problem-free Kinetis and i.MX RT 10xx developments the uTasker project holds the key: https://www.utasker.com/iMX/RT1064.html

[myke_predko]

@MarcoGiammarini 

What volume of product are you building?  If you're talking in the hundreds at a time then I would recommend getting the MCUs pre-programmed before they're soldered to the PCB.  

Your board manufacturer should have relationships with companies that do that as it saves them money and hassle and is a higher quality process.  

As @ErichStyger indicates there are quite a few ways to do the programming on the line, but eliminating that manufacturing makes sense in terms of cost, product turn around and quality.  

myke

[MarcoGiammarini]

50/100 pieces per time...

[myke_predko]

@MarcoGiammarini 

That's probably too low for ongoing purchases of pre-programmed parts but I still recommend talking to your board manufacturer.  

With the current long lead times on Kinetis (and other devices) it may make sense to buy your year's supply now at which point it would be advantageous to have them preprogrammed.  

Good luck - I'm going through the same discussions right now.

myke

[MarcoGiammarini]

It needs an open project, otherwise, you can't choose the microcontroller, right?

[ErichStyger]

yes, just a dummy project where it can store the settings.

[ErichStyger · Accepted solution]

There are different ways, depends a bit on the debug probe used.

For LinkServer you can run a script as shown in https://mcuoneclipse.com/2020/12/05/standalone-and-command-line-programmer-with-mcuxpresso/

For P&E (PEMicro) or Segger you can use gdb: https://mcuoneclipse.com/2015/03/25/command-line-programming-and-debugging-with-gdb/

Or you can buy one of the production programmers (Cyclone from P&E, Flasher from SEGGER), see https://mcuoneclipse.com/2016/04/02/flashing-many-arm-boards-without-a-host-pc/ then you can even do the programming without a host PC.

The other way is that you have a bootloader on your device, then you can program it directly e.g. over USB or with blhost:

https://mcuoneclipse.com/2018/03/03/flash-resident-usb-hid-bootloader-with-the-nxp-kinetis-k22-micro...

I hope this helps,

Erich

[MarcoGiammarini]

Thanks, @ErichStyger  for the reply. I use both P&E Micro and Segger to develop. I was hoping there was a simpler solution, like STM32CubeProgrammer. I'll try your solution with gdb.

Regards

Marco

[ErichStyger]

Hi Marco,

the MCUXpresso IDE has a similar programmer built in as 'GUI Flash Programmer':

Erich