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GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain for nRF52840 & nRF5 SDK

GaryDT

Good evening,

Referring to the following page which lists IDEs that are supported by Nordic Nordic Supported IDEs

Please kindly let me know if the following toolchain is an equally viable candidate? GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain

The main reason that I'm asking the question is simply because the "GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain" isn't in Nordic's list of supported IDEs (1st link above), and so I'm wondering why that is?

Incidentally, I've used Visual Studio in the past for OpenGL, but I'm anticipating that the setup process to enable compiling for nRF52840 will be beyond my experience. Therefore I like the idea of using a dedicated toolchain to make things easier, and therefore give me more time to get on with developing the nRF52840.

Also please let me know if you think there are any obvious disadvantages in using Arm Embedded Toolchain that I should know about? For example SEGGER Embedded Studio (SES) states that it's free but only for non-commercial use, and ARM KEIL LITE states there's a 32 KByte code size limit.

Cheers, Gary.

Edit: I've just found the following link Pre-built Arm Cortex-M GNU toolchain (anyway I won't try to delete this thread since it has some useful links, and my question about potential disadvantages still stands? I guess the list via my 1st link above just needs updating). Sorry for missing this, but having tried just now, I can't actually work out how to navigate to the "Pre-built..." link from Nordic's homepage anyway, i.e., it just came up on Google.

Edit 2: I've just read that the toolchain isn't actually an integrated development environment (IDE), so that'll be why it isn't in Nordic's list of IDEs. Any advice though is much appreciated.

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  • +1

    Hello,

    The answer to your questions depends on what SDK you've chosen to use. As you may have seen, we now have two separate SDKs for development on the nRF52 series, the nRF5 SDK and the nRF Connect SDK. I would recommend reading this blog post about the background for introducing another new SDK: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/nordic/nordic-blog/b/blog/posts/nrf-connect-sdk-and-nrf5-sdk-statement if you haven't already decided which one to use yet.

    IDE when using the nRF5 SDK

    I think Segger embedded studio would be your best choice if you mainly want something that is easy to get started with. It gives you everything you need to develop FW in one place (build, flash, text editor, debugging, logging output, etc) as you would expect from an IDE. It's also free to use commercially when targeting Nordic ICs (https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-tools/Segger-Embedded-Studio) unlike IAR and Keil uvision.

    Edit 2: I've just read that the toolchain isn't actually an integrated development environment (IDE), so that'll be why it isn't in Nordic's list of IDEs. Any advice though is much appreciated.

    Yes, it's just the toolchain. This can be used it together with our GCC makefiles to build examples from the command line.

    IDE when using the nRF Connect SDK

    We officially support VS Code and Segger embedded studio as IDEs, but for this SDK I recommend VS code. It offers more features which are tailored to the SDK. For instance, a wizard to generate custom board files, syntax checker for device tree overlays, and autocomplete for the project configuration settings (kconfig).

    Best regards,

    Vidar

Reply
  • +1

    Hello,

    The answer to your questions depends on what SDK you've chosen to use. As you may have seen, we now have two separate SDKs for development on the nRF52 series, the nRF5 SDK and the nRF Connect SDK. I would recommend reading this blog post about the background for introducing another new SDK: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/nordic/nordic-blog/b/blog/posts/nrf-connect-sdk-and-nrf5-sdk-statement if you haven't already decided which one to use yet.

    IDE when using the nRF5 SDK

    I think Segger embedded studio would be your best choice if you mainly want something that is easy to get started with. It gives you everything you need to develop FW in one place (build, flash, text editor, debugging, logging output, etc) as you would expect from an IDE. It's also free to use commercially when targeting Nordic ICs (https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-tools/Segger-Embedded-Studio) unlike IAR and Keil uvision.

    Edit 2: I've just read that the toolchain isn't actually an integrated development environment (IDE), so that'll be why it isn't in Nordic's list of IDEs. Any advice though is much appreciated.

    Yes, it's just the toolchain. This can be used it together with our GCC makefiles to build examples from the command line.

    IDE when using the nRF Connect SDK

    We officially support VS Code and Segger embedded studio as IDEs, but for this SDK I recommend VS code. It offers more features which are tailored to the SDK. For instance, a wizard to generate custom board files, syntax checker for device tree overlays, and autocomplete for the project configuration settings (kconfig).

    Best regards,

    Vidar

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  • 0 in reply to Vidar Berg

    Thanks Vidar, that all sounds really great. I'll probably decide this evening after reading that blog and a little more investigating.

    I didn't know that Segger embedded studio was free for commercial use when targeting Nordic ICs, which is awesome in itself. As you might have guessed I hadn't heard about the VS Code option either.

    I'm very glad I posted the question, thank you kindly.

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