Soft Device + Application flash doesn't work with Eclipse

[Ben34]

Hello all,

I struggle to program nrf52 on Eclipse, and it works fine with Keil. Let me explain :

With Keil :

-I first flash softdevice 5.0 manually with JFlash Lite

-I flash my code with Keil,

it works fine. I can flash a merged hex file and my code after that, it is okay, my code is running

With Eclipse :

My code compiles (the same code), but if I flash the same softdevice, and my code, my code is not running.

I checked my project ld file and .map file : all is okay (i.e : same parameters in Keil),  my code starts at 0x23000

I am running out of ideas... Any help?

Thank you!

[Nguyen Hoan Hoang]

Eclipse does not automatically flash softdevice.  You need to flash Softdevice before from outside then Eclipse can flash and debug your firmware. Flashing Softdevice is only need to be done once.  You can refresh your firmware in Eclipse as many times as you like as long that you don't erase the softdevice region. 

Follow this blog to use Eclipse with nRF series https://embeddedsoftdev.blogspot.com/p/ehal-nrf51.html

[Ben34]

Hi,

Thank you for you response :) I am working with Makefile, and nrf commands like nrfjprog. I tried to use an example (low power pwm) and I managed to make it work! So something must be wrong with my initial code. I cocmmented all my main, and only used gpio for LED blinking : not succeed.; I try to run some debug to finid out what is going on, you'll be in touch

[Ben34]

UPDATE : I found out what is going on : I am using the default .ld file provided in an SDK example and the FLASH lenght was specifed to 5D000, wich is too much : I had data around 0x39000 which were corrupted. When I specify Keil parameter (0x15000), my code doesn't compile anymore! I am facing flash overflow! Now I know Keil was performing size optimisation I have to tell gcc to do. (because in Keil, the code compiles)

I set the same Optimisation level as Keil (O2) but I don't know how to tell gcc to use microlib library.

Could someone help please? 

[Nguyen Hoan Hoang]

For GCC optimization for space, use -Os

For newlib nano, use linker parameter --specs=nano.specs

It is better to use Eclipse native project than makefile project.  

[Ben34]

Thank you for the advice. Unfortunately, with -Os : it still overflows by 276 bytes. I could increase FLASH lenght a little bit, but it will delay the issue : my code is going to be bigger. In Keil, it compiles fine with -O2, and I would like to have this results in Eclipse. nano.specs is already set. here is a piece of my Makefile, I think it could help :

# Libraries common to all targets
LIB_FILES += \

# Optimization flags
OPT = -O2 -g3
# Uncomment the line below to enable link time optimization
#OPT += -flto



CPPFLAGS += BOARD_PCA10040
CPPFLAGS += NRF52 NRF52832_XXAA
CPPFLAGS += NRF52_PAN_74
CPPFLAGS += NRF_SD_BLE_API_VERSION=5
CPPFLAGS += S132
CPPFLAGS += SOFTDEVICE_PRESENT
CPPFLAGS += SWI_DISABLE0

# C flags common to all targets
CFLAGS += $(OPT)
CFLAGS += -DBOARD_PCA10040
CFLAGS += -DCONFIG_GPIO_AS_PINRESET
CFLAGS += -DNRF52
CFLAGS += -DNRF52832_XXAA
CFLAGS += -DNRF52_PAN_74
CFLAGS += -DNRF_SD_BLE_API_VERSION=5
CFLAGS += -DS132
CFLAGS += -DSOFTDEVICE_PRESENT
CFLAGS += -DSWI_DISABLE0
CFLAGS += -mcpu=cortex-m4
CFLAGS += -mthumb -mabi=aapcs
CFLAGS +=  -Wall
CFLAGS += -Werror=implicit-function-declaration
CFLAGS += -Wno-unused-function -Wno-comment -Wno-unused-variable
CFLAGS += -mfloat-abi=hard -mfpu=fpv4-sp-d16
CFLAG += -split_sections
CFLAG += -apcs=interwork
CFLAG += --cpu Cortex-M4.fp
# keep every function in a separate section, this allows linker to discard unused ones
CFLAGS += -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -fno-strict-aliasing
CFLAGS += -fno-builtin -fshort-enums
CFLAG += --library_type=microlib


# C++ flags common to all targets
CXXFLAGS += $(OPT)

# Assembler flags common to all targets
ASMFLAGS += -O2 -g3
ASMFLAGS += -mcpu=cortex-m4
ASMFLAGS += -mthumb -mabi=aapcs
ASMFLAGS += -mfloat-abi=hard -mfpu=fpv4-sp-d16
ASMFLAGS += -DBOARD_PCA10040
ASMFLAGS += -DCONFIG_GPIO_AS_PINRESET
ASMFLAGS += -DNRF52
ASMFLAGS += -DNRF52832_XXAA
ASMFLAGS += -DNRF52_PAN_74
ASMFLAGS += -DNRF_SD_BLE_API_VERSION=5
ASMFLAGS += -DS132
ASMFLAGS += -DSOFTDEVICE_PRESENT
ASMFLAGS += -DSWI_DISABLE0
ASMFLAGS += -D__MICROLIB

# Linker flags
LDFLAGS += $(OPT)
LDFLAGS += -mthumb -mabi=aapcs -L $(TEMPLATE_PATH) -T$(LINKER_SCRIPT)
LDFLAGS += -mcpu=cortex-m4
LDFLAGS += -mfloat-abi=hard -mfpu=fpv4-sp-d16
LDFLAG += --library_type=microlib
# let linker dump unused sections
LDFLAGS += -Wl,--gc-sections
# use newlib in nano version
LDFLAGS += -specs=nano.specs -lc -lnosys -lm

I tried to copy compiler command lines and asm command line from Keil.

I tried to make gcc use microlib; but either I put the line or not, it doesn't change anything

Thank you for support :)