What are the current support and development plans for Kinetis RTOSes and IDEs?

[dmitriyc]

Hello,

There have been a lot of recent changes in terms of IDEs and RTOSes for Kinetis. The information is out there, but it's not trivial to sift through all of it and figure out which information is up-to date.

Someone who is an NXP employee with knowledge on the subject, please give an overall description of the current plans for the Kinetis development ecosystem and answer the questions included below.

I mean this to be a FAQ post because I think many other people have some of the same questions. One person doesn't need to know everything, but let's try to eventually collate all the answers into one post. If this post gets a good set of answers, it can be edited to add questions. If there is already an up-to-date document or post that performs this function, please point me in the right direction.

General:

1. What will be the IDE of choice for new Kinetis development?

2. What will be the RTOS of choice for new Kinetis development?

3. Of the middleware available in MQX 4.2 (RTCS, USB, MFS, etc.), what already has functional equivalents in the new development environment? (I assume it's KDS and KSDK 2 with FreeRTOS).

4. What are the major licensing differences between MQX CW and the new environment? Include some info about the middleware in the answer.

5. Is CodeWarrior still the long-term IDE solution for other microcontrollers? Will there be new non-Kinetis MCU products released that require CodeWarrior?

MQX Support

6. Will there be bugfix releases for MQX 4.2 for CodeWarrior 10.6?

7. Will there be bugfix releases for MQX 4.2 for KDS? If so, which version of KSDK?

8. What will be the driving factor for MQX bugfix releases? How often are they expected to happen?

9. When you say bugfix releases, does this include only the kernel or the middleware as well?

10. If I find a bug in MQX 4.2, how likely am I go get any NXP development attention for it? Does this depend on whether I have a support subscription for CW? To what extent?

11. If I buy a CW support subscription now, what value do I get out of it in terms of Kinetis development?

New Environment

11. Will there be devkit BSPs and example projects with all middleware included for the FreeRTOS system? For example, in the old ecosystem I could buy a Tower kit that has demo code exercising MFS, HTTP, and USB with a full reference BSP out-of-the-box.

12. How does BSP generation work in the KSDK2/FreeRTOS environment?

13. Will the FreeRTOS included in KSDK2 have any NXP-only patches? That is, will the kernel be any different from what I can get at FreeRTOS.org?

14. Will any of the middleware in KDSK2 be patched by NXP?

15. If I want to modify the OpenRTOS kernel included with KSDK2 without releasing the source, what are my options? Do you (the Kinetis group) have some relationship with the OpenRTOS people or offer a similar licensing scheme?

I plan to use this information to help decide if and when to port the firmware for a new product currently in development. I have some room to maneuver now, but such changes will get much harder after product release. Longevity is important for this product. The 10-year longevity policy for the hardware is great, but having an RTOS and development environment that doesn't show signs of bitrot a few years after product release is also desirable.

[Carlos_Musich]

Hi dimitriyc,

please see answers below.

General:

1. What will be the IDE of choice for new Kinetis development?

A: Freescale provides KDS as a free tool for Kinetis development which is based in Eclipse. However, it is not intended to compete with our partners tools, if you want a more robust IDE than KDS you may consider any of our partners IDEs such as IAR or Keil.

2. What will be the RTOS of choice for new Kinetis development?

A: NXP has teamed up with Embedded Access to continue active development of MQX software solutions, providing regular updates, enhancements and ports to new processors. We will introduce MQx v5 as an extension to MQX Classic v4.2.

On the other hand, MQX kernel, stacks and middleware have been removed from the Kinetis SDK and will focus on open-source RTOS solutions such as FreeRTOS.

3. Of the middleware available in MQX 4.2 (RTCS, USB, MFS, etc.), what already has functional equivalents in the new development environment? (I assume it's KDS and KSDK 2 with FreeRTOS).

A: KSDK2.0 provides lwIP, USB stack and fatfs respectiveley.

4. What are the major licensing differences between MQX CW and the new environment? Include some info about the middleware in the answer.

A: MQX is completely free as well as KSDK and all their components. License is required when using CW10.x IDE, but it is only required if your application exceeds the size limits. Please see the details of licensing limits in the following document.

https://www.nxp.com/files/soft_dev_tools/doc/fact_sheet/950-00437.pdf

5. Is CodeWarrior still the long-term IDE solution for other microcontrollers? Will there be new non-Kinetis MCU products released that require CodeWarrior?

A: No, last major release of Codewarrior is CW10.6.

MQX Support

6. Will there be bugfix releases for MQX 4.2 for CodeWarrior 10.6?

A: Yes

7. Will there be bugfix releases for MQX 4.2 for KDS? If so, which version of KSDK?

A: Yes. MQX4.2 is the same for CW and for KDS. As stated in point 2 MQX v5 will continue the classic MQX line. On the other hand MQX for KSDK was removed in KSDK2.0.

8. What will be the driving factor for MQX bugfix releases? How often are they expected to happen?

A: We cannot determine when are patches released. This depends on marketing and MQX development teams.

9. When you say bugfix releases, does this include only the kernel or the middleware as well?

A: Also middleware

10. If I find a bug in MQX 4.2, how likely am I go get any NXP development attention for it? Does this depend on whether I have a support subscription for CW? To what extent?

A: All bugs will be reported and fixed in following releases (minor release or major release depending and MQX developers plan). If you want a hotfix before the release you can contact your FAE or sales representative to ask for it.

11. If I buy a CW support subscription now, what value do I get out of it in terms of Kinetis development?

A: None, as CW10.x is the last major release the extended support includes only a mechanism to make licensing rehosting by your own.

New Environment

11. Will there be devkit BSPs and example projects with all middleware included for the FreeRTOS system? For example, in the old ecosystem I could buy a Tower kit that has demo code exercising MFS, HTTP, and USB with a full reference BSP out-of-the-box.

A: It is already available in KSDK2.0. You can visit next post: https://community.freescale.com/docs/DOC-329662

12. How does BSP generation work in the KSDK2/FreeRTOS environment?

A: There is no BSP. If an application with FreeRTOS support is created all the FreeRTOS source files are included.

13. Will the FreeRTOS included in KSDK2 have any NXP-only patches? That is, will the kernel be any different from what I can get at FreeRTOS.org?

A: No.

14. Will any of the middleware in KDSK2 be patched by NXP?

A: Middleware developed by NXP will. Open source will not.

15. If I want to modify the OpenRTOS kernel included with KSDK2 without releasing the source, what are my options? Do you (the Kinetis group) have some relationship with the OpenRTOS people or offer a similar licensing scheme?

A: Honestly I dont know, probably mnorman​ can provide infromation about this point.

I hope this information is useful.

Regards,
Carlos

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