Getting Blinky With the Kinetis SDK and Processor Expert

This tutorial goes through the steps how to create a blinking LED application, using Kinetis SDK and Processor Expert, using the TWR-KL43Z48M board from Freescale (now NXP):

TWR-KL43z48M

Preconditions

I’m using the following in this tutorial:

• Eclipse-based Kinetis Design Studio V3.2.0: http://www.nxp.com/kds. Or use your preferred IDE with Processor Expert.
• Kinetis SDK V1.3 for your target board: Get it from http://kex.nxp.com/.
• Make sure you install the SDK update into Eclipse (menu Help > Install New Software and then point to the .zip file in <SDK installation path>\tools\eclipse_update).
• McuOnEclipse Processor Expert components from SourceForge, and see “McuOnEclipse Releases on SourceForge” to learn how to install it.

I’m using the TWR-KL43Z48M board in this tutorial. You can use any other board, make sure you have the schematics and you should be ready to go.

Createa  New Project

Create new project with File > New > Processor Expert Project (Kinetis SDK 1.x works the same, in case you're wondering):

Provide a project name, select your board/device, then point to the SDK folder and enable Processor Expert:

SDK selection

Components

This creates a standard project with some default components:

Adding Components

Consult the schematics and board configuration where you have the LEDs. On my TWR-KL43Z, the green LED is on PTA12.

To work with GPIO pins, I add the fsl_gpio component for the SDK V1.3 to the project:

Adding fsl_gpio

Add the LED component:

Adding the LED

SDK

This adds a few referenced components. Right now it shows an error, because the LED component it needs to be configured to use the SDK. Specify the SDK to be used (1.3 in our case):

SDK to be used

Tell the LED component to use the SDK variant (SDK_BitIO):

As I’m using the LED on PTA12, I configure it as such (GPIOx, pin number) and give it a symbol name (LED_GREEN, in my case):

Configured pin

Building and Debugging

That’s it! Generate code:

Then, add some blinky code like this:

for(;;) {
    LED1_On();
    LED1_Off();
}

Blinky code

And then build/compile the project:

Press debug:

And finally, debug it on your board:

Stepping through the code now should make the LED blink:

Blinky, blinky!

Summary

The fastest way to bring up a board like the TWR-KL43Z used in this tutorial is still with Processor Expert: To make the blinky for that board took me less than three minutes from project creation to debugging the blinking LED code on the target.

The project is available on GitHub.

Happy blinking!