Get Started with the FRDM-KL43Z

Last Modified: 2019-03-25 11:54:00Supports FRDM-KL43Z | KL43/KL33/KL27/KL17/KL13 | Dev Platform

Contents of this document

  • 1

    Plug It In

  • 2

    Get Software

  • 3

    Build, Run

  • 4

    Create

    Purchase your FRDM-KL43Z | KL43/KL33/KL27/KL17/KL13 | Dev Platform

    Contents of this document

    Plug It In

    Let's take your FRDM-KL43Z for a test drive! You have the choice of watching the sequence in a short video or following the detailed actions list below.

    Get Started with FRDM-KL43Z Development Platform - How To

    1.1 Attach the USB Cable

    1.2 Run the Out-of-Box Demo

    Your FRDM-KL43Z comes loaded with a "bubble level" demo that leverages the on-board accelerometer. When the board is flat, the LEDs are turned off, and when the board is tilted, the red or green LEDs gradually illuminate based on the degree of tilt on the X- and Y-axis.

    1.3 Demo not working?

    Did your board come in a box that looks like this?

    You should be seeing the red and green LEDs toggling back and forth. It's OK to move onto the next step when you're ready

    Still not working?

    Try proceeding to the next steps to get other example applications running on your board. If you still have problems, try contacting us through the NXP Community.

    NextGet Software

    Get Software

    Installing software for the FRDM-KL43Z

    2.1 Jump Start Your Design with the Kinetis SDK!

    Want to learn about SDK

    The Kinetis Software Development Kit (SDK) is complimentary and includes full source code under a permissive open-source license for all hardware abstraction and peripheral driver software.

    Click below to download the SDK Release appropriate for your computer's operating system.

    Get SDK

    2.2 Install Your Toolchain

    NXP offers a complimentary toolchain called Kinetis Design Studio (KDS)

    Get Kinetis Design Studio

    Want to use a different toolchain?

    No problem! The Kinetis SDK includes support for other tools such as IAR, Keil and command-line GCC.

    2.3 PC Configuration

    Many of the example applications output data over the MCU UART so you’ll want to make sure that the driver for the board’s virtual COM port is installed. It should install automatically when you plug the board in to your PC. If the driver does not automatically install, click here to download the installer.

    With the serial port driver installed, run your favorite terminal application to view the serial output from the MCU's UART. Configure the terminal to 115200 baud rate, 8 data bits, no parity and 1 stop bit. To determine the port number of the FRDM-KL43Z's virtual COM port, open the device manager and look under the "Ports" group.

    Not sure how to use a terminal application? Try one of these tutorials:

    2.4 Tera Term Tutorial

    Tera Term is a very popular open source terminal emulation application. This program can be used to display information sent from your NXP development platform's virtual serial port.

    1. Download Tera Term from SourceForge. After the download, run the installer and then return to this webpage to continue.

      2. Download

    2. Launch Tera Term. The first time it launches, it will show you the following dialog. Select the serial option. Assuming your board is plugged in, there should be a COM port automatically populated in the list.
    3. Configure the serial port settings (using the COM port number identified earlier) to 115200 baud rate, 8 data bits, no parity and 1 stop bit. To do this, go to Setup -> Serial Port and change the settings.
    4. Verify that the connection is open. If connected, Tera Term will show something like below in it's title bar.
    5. You're ready to go

    2.5 PuTTY Tutorial

    PuTTY is a popular terminal emulation application. This program can be used to display information sent from your NXP development platform's virtual serial port.

    1. Download PuTTY using the button below. After the download, run the installer and then return to this webpage to continue.

      2. Download

    2. Launch PuTTY by either double clicking on the *.exe file you downloaded or from the Start menu, depending on the type of download you selected.
    3. Configure In the window that launches, select the Serial radio button and enter the COM port number that you determined earlier. Also enter the baud rate, in this case 115200.
    4. Click Open to open the serial connection. Assuming the board is connected and you entered the correct COM port, the terminal window will open. If the configuration is not correct, PuTTY will alert you.
    5. You're ready to go

    PreviousPlug It In
    NextBuild, Run

    Build, Run

    Build and Run SDK Demos on the FRDM-KL43Z

    3.1 Explore the SDK Example Code

    The Kinetis SDK comes with a long list of example applications code. To see what's available, browse to the SDK boards folder of your SDK installation and select your board, the FRDM-KL43Z(/boards/frdmkl43z).

    To learn more about demo applications or driver examples, open the Kinetis SDK Demo Applications User's Guide, located in /doc.

    3.2 Build, Run and Debug SDK Examples

    If one or more of the example applications sound interesting, you're probably wanting to know how you can build and debug yourself. The Getting Started with Kinetis SDK guide provides easy, step-by-step instructions on how to configure, build, and debug SDK example code for all supported toolchains.

    Use the guide below to learn how to open, build and debug an example application using the Kinetis Design Studio (KDS) IDE.

    Using a different toolchain?

    3.3 Use IAR

    1. Build an Example Application

    The following steps will guide you through opening the hello_world application. These steps may change slightly for other example applications as some of these applications may have additional layers of folders in their path.

    1. If not already done, open the desired example application workspace. Most example application workspace files can be located using the following path:

      /boards////iar

      Using the hello_world demo as an example, the path is:

      /boards/frdmkl43z/demo_apps/hello_world/iar

    2. Select the desired build target from the drop-down. For this example, select the “hello_world – Debug” target.

    3. To build the application, click the “Make” button, highlighted in red below.

    4. The build will complete without errors.:

    2. Run an Example Application

    The FRDM-KL43Z board comes loaded with the P&E micro debug interface from the factory. If you have changed the debug OpenSDA application on your board, visit http://www.nxp.com/opensda for information on updating or restoring your board to the factory state.

    1. Connect the development platform to your PC via USB cable between the "SDAUSB" USB port on the board and the PC USB connector.

    2. Open the terminal application on the PC (such as PuTTY or TeraTerm) and connect to the debug COM port you determined earlier. Configure the terminal with these settings:

      • 15200 baud rate
      • No parity
      • 8 data bits
      • 1 stop bit

    3. Click the "Download and Debug" button to download the application to the target.

    4. The application is then downloaded to the target and automatically runs to the main() function.

    5. Run the code by clicking the "Go" button to start the application.

    6. The hello_world application is now running and a banner is displayed on the terminal. If this is not the case, check your terminal settings and connections.

    3.4 Use Keil® MDK

    1. Install CMSIS device pack

    After the MDK tools are installed, Cortex® Microcontroller Software Interface Standard (CMSIS) device packs must be installed to fully support the device from a debug perspective. These packs include things such as memory map information, register definitions and flash programming algorithms. Follow these steps to install the appropriate CMSIS pack.

    1. Open the MDK IDE, which is called µVision. In the IDE, select the "Pack Installer" icon.

    2. In the Pack Installer window, navigate to the section with the Kinetis packs (they are in alphabetical order). The Kinetis packs start with "Keil::Kinetis" and are followed by the MCU family name, for example "Keil::Kinetis_KLxx_DFP". Because this example uses the FRDM-KL43Z platform, the Kinetis KLxx_DFP family pack is selected. Click on the "Install" button next to the pack. This process requires an internet connection to successfully complete.

    3. After the installation finishes, close the Pack Installer window and return to the µVision IDE.

    2. Build the Example Application

    The following steps will guide you through opening the hello_world application. These steps may change slightly for other example applications as some of these applications may have additional layers of folders in their path.

    1. If not already done, open the desired demo application workspace in:

      /boards////mdk

      The workspace file is named .uvmpw, so for this specific example, the actual path is:

      /boards/frdmkl43z/demo_apps/hello_world/iar/hello_world.uvmpw

    2. To build the demo project, select the "Rebuild" button, highlighted in red.

    3. The build will complete without errors.

    3. Run an Example Application

    The FRDM-KL43Z board comes loaded with the mbed/CMSIS-DAP debug interface from the factory. If you have changed the debug OpenSDA application on your board, visit http://www.nxp.com/opensda for information on updating or restoring your board to the factory state.

    1. Connect the development platform to your PC via USB cable between the "SDAUSB" USB port on the board and the PC USB connector.

    2. Open the terminal application on the PC (such as PuTTY or TeraTerm) and connect to the debug COM port you determined earlier. Configure the terminal with these settings:

      • 15200 baud rate
      • No parity
      • 8 data bits
      • 1 stop bit

    3. After the application is properly built, click the "Download" button to download the application to the target.

    4. After clicking the "Download" button, the application downloads to the target and should be running. To debug the application, click the "Start/Stop Debug Session" button, highlighted in red.

    5. Run the code by clicking the "Run" button to start the application.

    6. The hello_world application is now running and a banner is displayed on the terminal. If this is not the case, check your terminal settings and connections.

    3.5 Use Arm® GCC

    1. Set Up Toolchain

    This section contains the steps to install the necessary components required to build and run a KSDK demo application with the Arm GCC toolchain, as supported by the Kinetis SDK. There are many ways to use Arm GCC tools, but this example focuses on a Windows environment. Though not discussed here, GCC tools can also be used with both Linux OS and Mac OSX.


    Install GCC Arm Embedded Toolchain

    Download and run the installer from launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded. This is the actual toolchain (i.e., compiler, linker, etc.). The GCC toolchain should correspond to the latest supported version, as described in the Kinetis SDK Release Notes.


    Install MinGW

    The Minimalist GNU for Windows (MinGW) development tools provide a set of tools that are not dependent on third party C-Runtime DLLs (such as Cygwin). The build environment used by the KSDK does not utilize the MinGW build tools, but does leverage the base install of both MinGW and MSYS. MSYS provides a basic shell with a Unix-like interface and tools.

    1. Download the latest MinGW mingw-get-setup installer from sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/Installer/.

    2. Run the installer. The recommended installation path is C:\MinGW, however, you may install to any location.

      3. NOTE

      The installation path cannot contain any spaces.

    3. Ensure that the "mingw32-base" and "msys-base" are selected under Basic Setup.

    4. Click "Apply Changes" in the "Installation" menu and follow the remaining instructions to complete the installation.

    5. Add the appropriate item to the Windows operating system Path environment variable. It can be found under Control Panel -> System and Security -> System -> Advanced System Settings in the "Environment Variables..." section. The path is:

      \bin

      Assuming the default installation path, C:\MinGW, an example is shown below. If the path is not set correctly, the toolchain does not work.

      NOTE

      If you have "C:\MinGW\msys\x.x\bin" in your PATH variable (as required by KSDK 1.0.0), remove it to ensure that the new GCC build system works correctly.

      6. Add a New Environment Variable for ARMGCC_DIR

      Create a new system environment variable and name it ARMGCC_DIR. The value of this variable should point to the Arm GCC Embedded tool chain installation path, which, for this example, is:

      C:\Program Files (x86)\GNU Tools Arm Embedded\4.9 2015q3

      Reference the installation folder of the GNU Arm GCC Embedded tools for the exact path name of your installation.

      Install CMake

      1. Download CMake 3.0.x from www.cmake.org/cmake/resources/software.html.

      2. Install CMake, ensuring that the option "Add CMake to system PATH" is selected when installing. It's up to the user to select whether it's installed into the PATH for all users or just the current user. In this example, the assumption is that it's installed for all users.

      3. Follow the remaining instructions of the installer.

      4. You may need to reboot your system for the PATH changes to take effect.

    2. Build an Example Application

    To build an example application, follow these steps.

    1. If not already running, open a GCC Arm Embedded tool chain command window. To launch the window, from the Windows operating system Start menu, go to “Programs -> GNU Tools Arm Embedded ” and select “GCC Command Prompt”.

    2. Change the directory to the example application project directory, which has a path like this:

      /boards////armgcc

      For this guide, the exact path is:

      /boards/frdmkl43z/demo_apps/hello_world/armgcc

    3. Type “build_debug.bat” on the command line or double click on the "build_debug.bat" file in Windows operating system Explorer to perform the build. The output is shown in this figure:

    3. Run an Example Application

    The GCC tools require a J-Link debug interface. To update the OpenSDA firmware on your board to the latest J-Link app, visit www.nxp.com/opensda. After installing the J-Link OpenSDA application, download the J-Link driver and software package from www.segger.com/downloads.html.

    1. Connect the development platform to your PC via USB cable between the "SDAUSB" USB port on the board and the PC USB connector.

    2. Open the terminal application on the PC (such as PuTTY or TeraTerm) and connect to the debug COM port you determined earlier. Configure the terminal with these settings:

      • 15200 baud rate
      • No parity
      • 8 data bits
      • 1 stop bit

    3. Open the J-Link GDB Server application. Assuming the J-Link software is installed, the application can be launched by going to the Windows operating system Start menu and selecting "Programs -> SEGGER -> J-Link J-Link GDB Server".

    4. Modify the settings as shown below. The target device selection chosen for this example is the “MKL43Z256xxx4” and use the SWD interface.

    5. After it is connected, the screen should resemble this figure:

    6. If not already running, open a GCC Arm Embedded tool chain command window. To launch the window, from the Windows operating system Start menu, go to "Programs -> GNU Tools Arm Embedded " and select "GCC Command Prompt".

    7. Change to the directory that contains the demo application output. The output can be found in using one of these paths, depending on the build target selected:

      /boards////armgcc/debug

      /boards////armgcc/release

      For this guide, the path is:

      /boards/frdmkl43z/demo_apps/hello_world/armgcc/debug

    8. Run the command "arm-none-eabi-gdb.exe .elf". For this example, it is "arm-none-eabi-gdb.exe hello_world.elf".

    9. Run these commands:

      • "target remote localhost:2331"
      • "monitor reset"
      • "monitor halt"
      • "load"
      • "monitor reset"

    10. The application is now downloaded and halted at the reset vector. Execute the "monitor go" command to start the example application.

      The hello_world application is now running and a banner is displayed in the terminal window.

    PreviousGet Software
    NextCreate

    Create

    Create an Application for the FRDM-KL43Z

    4.1 Get SDK Project Generator

    Let's create our own project and make a simple SDK-based application. NXP provides an intuitive, simple project generation utility that allows creation of custom projects based on the Kinetis SDK.

    Get Project Generator

    4.2 Run the SDK Project Generator

    After extracting the ZIP file, open the utility by clicking on the KSDK_Project_Generator executable for your computer's operating system. Point the tool to your SDK installation path, name your project, and select the board that it uses as a reference. Click on the Quick Generate button to finish.

    4.3 Open Your Project

    Your new project will be located in /boards/frdmkl43z/user_apps. Open the project in your toolchain of choice by using the same process described in section 3.2.

    4.4 Write Some Code

    Now, let's make our new project do something other than spin in an infinite loop. The SDK examples provide board support (BSP) macros to do various things specific to the board, including macros and definitions for items such as LEDs, switches and peripheral instances. To keep things simple, lets make the LED blink using the BSP macros.

    Update the main() function in your project's main.c file with the following code:

    volatile uint32_t delay;

    BOARD_InitPins();

    BOARD_BootClockRUN();

    BOARD_InitDebugConsole();

    PRINTF("myProject project\n\r");

    // Enable the clock to the PORT module that the LED is on.

    CLOCK_EnableClock(kCLOCK_PortD);

    // Set the PORT configuration - from DISABLED -> GPIO.

    PORT_SetPinMux(BOARD_LED_GREEN_GPIO_PORT,

        BOARD_LED_GREEN_GPIO_PIN,
        kPORT_MuxAsGpio); // Initialize the green LED.

    LED_GREEN_INIT(LOGIC_LED_OFF);

    for (;;)
    {
    LED_GREEN_TOGGLE();

    delay = 5000000;

    while(delay--);

    }

    4.5 Build, Download, Run

    With the changes made to your main() function, build your application. Once the build is complete, download the application to your board.

    If you need help figuring out how to build, download or run an application, reference your tool-specific guide from section 3.2.

    4.6 Success!

    With the application downloaded, you will see the FRDM-KL43Z's green LED blinking. You can also view terminal output using PRINTF.

    PreviousBuild, Run