NXP KDS

The Kinetis Design Studio software development tool is a GNU/Eclipse-based development environment for Freescale Kinetis devices. It supports Cortex-M based Kinetis devices and integrates with Processor Expert and Kinetis Software Development Kit. KDS supports SEGGER J-Link/J-Trace, P&E USB Multilink Universal/USB Multilink Universal FX and CMSIS-DAP debug adapters and uses the newlib-nano C runtime library. This runtime library helps reduce the memory footprint of an embedded application.

Using a sample project with J-Link

The following steps assume/expect that basic installation and configuration of KDS and KSDK have already been done. If not done yet, please refer to Installing & Setting up NXP KDS.

• Select File | Import
• Open the General category
• Select Existing Projects in to Workspace
• Click Next
• Enter $KDS_INST_DIR$\NXPKSDK_1.1.0\demos\hello_world\kds\frdmk64f in the Select root directory: field
• Replace frdmk64f by the applicable board name if a different eval board is used
• Build the project
• Now the debug session can be started

If KDS does not create a fitting debug configuration by itself, it might be necessary to create one manually. In oder to do so:

• Open Run | Debug Configurations
• Double-Click GDB SEGGER J-Link Debugging
• Configure the settings according to the device to be debugged
• For reference, a generated debug configration for a FRDMK64f board looks as follows:

Installing & Setting up NXP KDS

• Install KDS
• If another installation type than full installation is chosen, take care that J-Link Support is included in the installation
• Start KDS
• Select a workspace path
• Wait for the Processor Expert Service to finish

• Quit KDS
• Install KSDK
• We will use a sample from this package
• SDK Base is enough for our purposes, however, feel free to choose a richer installation type
• Restart the System
• Start KDS
• Select Help | Install New Software
• In the "Work with:" drop down menu, select "NXP KDS Update Site - https://www.nxp.com/lgfiles/updates/Eclipse/KDS"
• Check Eclipse Update for KSDK 1.0.0-GA
• Check Processor Expert Software
• Check Processor Expert Software - Update for KDS v1.1.x
• Click Next

• Click Next
• Accept the License Agreement and click Finish
• Wait for the installation to finish
• Restart KDS
• Wait for the Processor Export Service to finish.
• There should be an environment variable "KSDK_PATH" set to the installation path of KSDK (default: C:\NXP\KSDK_X.X.X)
• In order to be able to use the sample projects provided by KSDK, the KSDK Platform Driver Library (libksdk_platform.a) needs to be built first.
• Select File | Import
• Open the General category
• Select Existing Projects in to Workspace
• Click Next
• Enter $KDS_INST_DIR$\NXPKSDK_1.1.0\lib\ksdk_platform_lib\kds\K64F12 in the "Select root directory:" field
• Replace K64F12 by the applicable device name if a different device is used
• Check the project found

• Click Finish
• If the welcome page is still present, click go to workbench
• Click the dropdown menu next to the hammer icon
• Choose debug. The debug version of the Platform lib will automatically be build
• Repeat with the release version
• Close the project.

Updating J-Link under NXP KDS (Linux)

Before proceeding please check which Linux (32 or 64 bits) you are using ($ uname -m) and install the according SEGGER J-Link package:

• x86 (release) or later (latest release)(Latest beta)
• x86_64 (release) or later (latest release)(Latest beta)

Once you have the latest J-Link installation open a terminal/console and check that your J-Link installation can be found under /opt/SEGGER/

$ anybody@ubuntu:/$ ls -l /opt/SEGGER/
total 4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   23 Mar 27 09:39 JLink -> /opt/SEGGER/JLink_V645c
drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4096 Mar 29 00:56 JLink_V645c

Assuming that you installed KDS under the default directory. Create a backup from the provided J-link tools from the IDE (in case you which to restore it later).

$ sudo mv /opt/Freescale/KDS_v3/segger /opt/Freescale/KDS_v3/segger_backup
$ sudo mkdir /opt/Freescale/KDS_v3/segger

Create a soft symlink to the latest SEGGER J-Link installation under KDS installation directory.

$ sudo ln -s /opt/SEGGER/JLink/* /opt/Freescale/KDS_v3/segger

Change/Create link for compatibility with new J-Link installation

$ sudo ln -s /opt/Freescale/KDS_v3/segger/JLinkGDBServerCLExe /opt/Freescale/KDS_v3/segger/JLinkGDBServerCL

Check that under /opt/Freescale/KDS_v3/segger you should see something like this:

$

Checking that KDS is using the provided J-Link version

$ 

Note: from now on if you wish to use the latest version J-Link you won't need to repeat the above steps. As the /opt/SEGGER/J-Link symlink will be updated by the installer automatically.

Thats it! You are all set to use the latest Segger Jlink under KDS(Linux).

Restore to KDS provided J-Link version

If you wish to retrieve to the KDS provided Jlink version simply remove the link to the directory and restore the backup folder.

$ sudo rm -r /opt/Freescale/KDS_v3/segger
$ sudo mv /opt/Freescale/KDS_v3/segger_backup /opt/Freescale/KDS_v3/segger