S32 Design Studio 3.5 - Migration from 2018.R1

[alwin_lutz]

All,

I have an existing project using S32K144 uC running on S32 Design Studio 2018.R1

For my new project (which is based on the one above), I wanted to move up to the latest development IDE (future proof for other S32K3xx variants).  I found the Design Studio 3.5 and installed it.  Unfortunately, what used to be Processor Expert in 2018.R1 is now S32 Configuration Tool framework.  The file formats for those 2 are not compatible and a conversion tool from PE to this new format is not available based on my search.  I started migrating the PE info over and found out, that the entire directory structure and more so the naming has changed as well, when selecting PALs and Drivers...

Looking at the other installation info for the 3.5 version, I noticed that the SDK version is S32K1xx RTM 4.0.1  whereas the 3.4 version has S32K1xx RTM 4.0.2.

Today I just notice this new message: "Current version of the toolchain is no longer supported. It is necessary to perform project migration to a later version."

So my question is: What is the most reliable/stable version of SDK and IDE to install to allow a migration from IDE 2018.R1 for future proofing, OR should I stay with 2018.R1 (would make live way easier!!)

Any help appreciated,

Alwin Lutz

[mikedoidge]

Hello @alwin_lutz 

This will indeed be a judgement call you will have to make. I will try to provide you with enough details to help you make the best decision.

The S32 Design Studio is NXP's Integrated Development Environment for the Automotive market.

As you probably know, it is built on top of Eclipse. We do not modify the base Eclipse. If we find a bug in Eclipse, we submit it to the Eclipse community for approval and then incorporate their update release into our product.

One limitation of this IDE is that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to support more than one type of core architecture. So this is why you see separate S32 Design Studio for Arm and S32 Design Studio for Power Architecture. Both of these tools contain a pin and driver configuration tool called ProcessorExpert. This tool takes the non-AUTOSAR NXP S32 SDK and user-input configurations and produces a combination of configuration and driver code into the user's application.

NXP also has MCAL drivers, which are AUTOSAR-compliant, which is required for safety rated applications in the Automotive market. However, they are not supported by the S32 Design Studio for Arm or Power Architecture. The MCAL drivers could not be easily incorporated into the ProcessorExpert tool, so NXP decided to develop a new tool, S32 Configuration Tools, which supports both AUTOSAR and Non-AUTOSAR drivers. At the same time, the non-AUTOSAR S32 SDK and the AUTOSAR MCALs were combined into the Real Time Drivers (RTD). The S32 Configuration Tools are heavily dependent upon the RTD.

Since the ProcessorExpert tool and the S32 Configuration Tools could not easily be supported within the same tool, a new IDE was created, S32 Design Studio for S32 Platform. This new IDE contains the S32 Configuration Tools supports only Arm and NXP accelerator cores. This is future of NXP's IDE plans and is where all future development and most of the updates will occur.

Unfortunately, there is no tool to easily migrate a project from ProcessorExpert to S32 Configuration Tools. This will be a manual process.

The S32K3 family will only be supported within the S32 Design Studio for S32 Platform. All new Arm-core NXP devices will be supported here. If you are expecting to migrate to the S32K3 family eventually, then you should strongly consider migrating sooner than later.

If you are unsure about which way to go, I encourage you to review the available materials to compare the tools.

Here are some HOWTO articles showing the experience of working with each set of tools:

S32DS for Arm Article Using ProcessorExpert

HOWTO: Create the Blinking LED example project using S32K144 SDK 

S32DS for S32 Platform Article Using S32 Configuration Tools

HOWTO: Create a Blinking LED example project using S32K1xx RTD with AUTOSAR

HOWTO: Create a Blinking LED example project using S32K1xx RTD without AUTOSAR

S32 Design Studio IDE Product Page

https://www.nxp.com/design/software/development-software/s32-design-studio-ide:S32-DESIGN-STUDIO-IDE

S32 SDK Product Page

https://www.nxp.com/design/software/development-software/s32-sdk:S32SDK

Real-Time Drives Product Page

https://www.nxp.com/company/blog/broadening-autosar-access-using-real-time-drivers-rtd-software:BL-B...

Best Regards,

Mike

[alwin_lutz]

Hi @KalaimaniArumugamdev ,

thank you for the link.  Unfortunately, this is a detailed description for Vision projects.  Mine is an ARM based system with a different SDK set, including an OS (freeRTOS).  

[KalaimaniArumugamdev]

Hi @alwin_lutz ,

     In this post may help you to solve this issue https://community.nxp.com/t5/S32-Design-Studio-Knowledge-Base/HOWTO-Migrate-Application-Projects-fro...