segger licenses required but no commercial use allowed

RE: segger licenses required but no commercial use allowed

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 12:37:21 GMT

Well, I've been using Eclipse with GDB all tied together nicely with both OpenOCD with IDAP-Link and JLink for the last 4 years and very reliably. All my project are native Eclipse project not only that I can also develop Linux C/C++ program with the same Eclipse (also with full GDB debugging) and my main development platform is OSX. Same eclipse, same gdb I used for NXP, Freescale, Nordic from M0 to M4 with full debug.

Eclipse is now easier than ever to install. Download, install then open it go to menu 'help/Eclipse marketplace' to install ARM plugin et voila. Eclipse wasn't an Opensource project by some guy. It was an initiative of IBM, SUN and some big names working together to created it. All silicon vendors TI, NXP, Freescale... abandoned their own IDE and rebase their development platform on Eclipse including ST.

Yes, I really mean IDE as Integrated Development Environment, everything integrated not just debugger but with remote development support as well. Though I have not tried the remote one but I do RPI development with it too, same old Eclipse.

RE: segger licenses required but no commercial use allowed

awneil — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 12:15:36 GMT

[quote userid="2867" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/37447/segger-licenses-required-but-no-commercial-use-allowed/144138"] I find it sad often that many embedded developers don't even use a debugger, some don't even know you can use one[/quote]

Yes - that is all too common, and very sad.

And I thoroughly agree that the big trouble with Eclipse - especially in conjunction with GDB - is getting it all together, and configured, and working reliably.

This is certainly where the proper IDEs (ie, where the 'I' really does mean, "Integrated") really win.

And this is what other manufacturers try (with varying degrees of success) to give you with their "personalised" versions of Eclipse (or whatever).

RE: segger licenses required but no commercial use allowed

RK — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 10:55:23 GMT

I actually prefer SES to Crossworks these days, doesn't really feel like a downgrade. The interface is streamlined and I think Segger has persuaded Rowley to make the 99% simple without removing all the power. A lot of those refinements have worked their way back into Crossworks, they're all little things but they make the whole IDE easier to use, certainly easier to get started with.

For me the selling points of SES or Crossworks have been

1) It was designed from day one for embedded development. It's not a generic tool with plugins to work with embedded, good as those plugins have become, it's embedded all the way through. That was key to me when I was starting out.

2) The debugging interface is native. It talks to the JLink directly and there is no way that communicating over a TCP socket to GDBServer ever gives the same kind of experience. I find it sad often that many embedded developers don't even use a debugger, some don't even know you can use one, and debug with UART printfs. I think a lot of that comes from the fact that debugging with GDBServer is a multi-stage shaky pipleline of components which need to be configured and run and babysat. The power of an IDE with a native debugger is you hit f5 and you're debugging as if you were writing code on your own box.

You can do a ton of things with Eclipse, I know you have done a ton of things with Eclipse and if people like that I'm very happy for them. I think IDEs like Crossworks and SES, designed for the job, integrated with the debug hardware (like Keil before them) are a really good way to give new embedded developers or seasoned developers learning a new chip a *really* good start, so I'll continue to recommend them.

RE: segger licenses required but no commercial use allowed

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 10:38:28 GMT

Yes, I know SES is a downgrade of CrossWorks. Don't know what it is now but about 4 years ago I saw it was announced CrossWorks for ARM based on Eclipse.

RE: segger licenses required but no commercial use allowed

awneil — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 10:20:41 GMT

I thought it didn't "feel" like Eclipse!

RE: segger licenses required but no commercial use allowed

RK — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 10:12:40 GMT

SES is not a custom version of Eclipse at all. SES is a whiteboxed version of Crossworks for ARM and that (it's stated in the documentation) is not based on Eclipse.

RE: segger licenses required but no commercial use allowed

awneil — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 09:16:15 GMT

[quote userid="73223" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/37447/segger-licenses-required-but-no-commercial-use-allowed"]It seems nordic devices can not be programmed without certain segger software.[/quote]

No, that's not true - any SWD programmer (with its own software) can be used.

[quote userid="73223" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/37447/segger-licenses-required-but-no-commercial-use-allowed"] I had to install SEGGER Embedded Studio IDE (although i dont use it)[/quote]

If you don't use it, then you didn't have to install it!

RE: segger licenses required but no commercial use allowed

awneil — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 09:12:51 GMT

[quote userid="3482" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/37447/segger-licenses-required-but-no-commercial-use-allowed/144038"]SES is ... limited to Segger and Nordic[/quote]

No, that's not true - SES supports any ARM (Cortex?) target.

www.segger.com/.../

But Segger does have a special arrangement with Nordic to allow you to use SES without paying for a licence.

RE: segger licenses required but no commercial use allowed

Bjørn Kvaale — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 09:01:10 GMT

Nordic also has an Eclipse/GCC tutorial, but we have had many customer complaints regarding eclipse unfortunately (just take a look at all of the comments below the tutorial). I have not used eclipse/gcc personally (apart from SES), so I cannot comment on this. Most likely if you know what you are doing, Eclipse/GCC is a great solution. 🙂

All I know is that many support engineers at Nordic use SES & you will most likely get better support if you use SES instead of Eclipse. At the end of the day, @dewid2 , you need to decide for yourself what development path you want to take.

RE: segger licenses required but no commercial use allowed

Bjørn Kvaale — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 08:54:26 GMT

I can confirm what RK said. You can still use SES for free on Nordic nRF51/52 chips. I would recommend taking a look at our getting started tutorials on youtube.

RE: segger licenses required but no commercial use allowed

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 03:50:53 GMT

SES is a custom version of Eclipse that is limited to Segger and Nordic. You can use regular Eclipse & GCC too and without limitations. I used it for many ARM based development with the same Eclipse, not just nRF5x. Follow this blog for Eclipse installation.

nRF5x Development with Eclipse & GCC

RE: segger licenses required but no commercial use allowed

dewid2 — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 00:06:07 GMT

Thanks for your answer, that clears up my doubts. Since I've only worked with Atmel MCUs before I did not know about a native way to program that ARM inside. I currently use the SDK with GCC only, but to flash the device I first installed the segger IDE for libjlinkarm.so, which worked but other stuff was also required so I got the J-Link software afterwards. Well, now I guess with J-Link alone the IDE would not have been required and i got confused by the fact that the "install license" does not cover nordic chips at all. Found out the specific nordic license can be requested here https://license.segger.com/Nordic.cgi in case anyone wants it as well.

RE: segger licenses required but no commercial use allowed

RK — Mon, 13 Aug 2018 21:37:48 GMT

No the collaboration has not been cancelled, Segger Embedded Studio is licensed for commercial use for the nRF51 and nRF52 series. If you check the licensing menu (different places depending on platform) you'll find a place you can register and you'll get a downloadable and installable license which, whenever you're working with a Nordic device in the project settings will show in the title bar that it's fully registered and will suppress any of the dialog boxes about being a trial. If you work with other chips (which I do) you get the nag boxes back again and the title bar shows the software is only trial. I believe there's a video somewhere on the Nordic site showing this registration process, a search in the forums ought to find it.

You don't need to install SES to set up the toolchain at all. You can download the SDK and GCC or use Keil or Eclipse or anything else you can make work. People have used Visual Studio Code and Qt. SES is recommended because it's a good IDE, but you aren't required to download or use it at all if you object to it.

The JLink software (not the IDE, but the tools like JLink and JLinkGDB) are required if you want to use the embedded JLink on the DK to program it, or debug it. The license for that doesn't allow you to use it for commercial mass programming of devices, but you can use it to develop software on that board or use it as as programmer for another Nordic chip (eg if you make your own board). So basically any practical development on the DK is covered, you only need a commercial programmer to mass program devices, and if you get there you're going to want a better solution anyway.

So you can develop, even for commercial use, on your DK using the JLink software to upload code and debug. If you use SES and obtain the free license you can use that IDE for commercial development.

If you don't want to use either, the board has a standard ARM debug header on it and you can use an SWD programmer with OpenOCD or CMSIS DAP or anything else you like which speaks SWD to program the board.