Hi, when are you planning on dumping the IAR compiler and go with Keil C51?? While I love the Z-stack, Chipcon and MSP430 combination, z-stack is still tied to tightly to the IAR compiler
We have tested both the compilers from IAR and Keil. IAR's was by far the easiest one to go with, this is why we decided for them.
Thanks, Emmanuel.
.
Too bad. The license is too expensive and the customers have to take the cost although you promote you have 'free software'. How about TI supporting some of the license fees?
I understand your position, and can tell you we are working with IAR on getting a better proposal for our 8051 customers. However I cannot commit we will be succesful.
The IAR KickStart offer a solution up to 4Kb of code (see http://supp.iar.com/Download/SW/?item=EW8051-KS4).
To be noticed IAR also provide a 30-day evaluation version at http://supp.iar.com/Download/SW/?item=EW8051-EVAL
If you agree that a lot of people work with Keil, and others work with IAR, even if IAR provides the best solution, I don't think it is such a good idea to bind EVERY customer to the solution that appears to you the best. Let them choose. The drawback will be to support (more or less) both compiler. But, if you provide just the minimum information to run the code with the Keil compiler, it will be a good point. No need to support it completely. Let the community work for you. A lot of us are already using a full paid software, with a full paid services, and full paid support hardware, software, legacy code, habits ... we need to change just for this product.
The solution you seems to prefer, the evaluation period is so much useless! 4kB of code, even during 60 days are nothing. Just the Zigbee stack could full it, letting too few space for user code. And moreover, who needs only 60 days for "evaluation"?
I am backing the other user when he said that you are not providing a free code. You are just driving your customers to buy IAR. That's not an advantage from the TI products compared with others more versatile compiler-speaking.
What do you think about just helping customers choosing the solution they prefer? It need just to be more specific how to set up their compiler of choice. And if possible, share your own findings for KEIL or other well-known ones.
Thanks,
JP
Hi JP,
Good point. It would be great if TI could support Keil, IAR, CCE, SDCC, mspgcc, etc. This is not the case. Z-Stack and TIMAC is currently bundled with IAR EW430 or IAR EW8051. If mesh networking is the only networking option you are looking for IAR is the way to go.
TI do provide other options where the source sample code is provided. With these options you can select your compiler of choice if interested. Multiple software examples are provided in source for multiple CCxxx and can be build for Keil, CCE - Code Composer, mspgcc, or sdcc. It is up to you.
Below are some good resources if you would like to investigate further:
CC2430 6LowPan Stack using sdcc compiler: http://sourceforge.net/project/platformdownload.php?group_id=213457
Contiki OS: (MSP430 + CC2420 + mspgcc): http://www.sics.se/contiki/
LPWRocks
"Customer Centricity, Enthusiasm, Mass collaboration and Great minds are the best path towards great products"
you can in fact use Keil with all our 8051 SoC devices. TI has made a distributable for Keil µVision which is released and supported by Keil. This distributable contains the necessary debug plug-ins which enable using the Keil IDE for both code development and debugging of the second generation SoCs. For more information, see http://www.keil.com/download/docs/365.asp
I agree that we could do a better effort at promoting this, and we will look at doing an app.note/design note on this topic. Thanks for excellent input!
Thank you both for your answer, I will look very closely at this app. note of Keil, and looking forward to yours.
LPWRocks : "TI do provide other options where the source sample code is provided." Is it possible to support academic research with this kind of options or is it reserved only for high price buyers? And what implies the "sample" part?
Thanks for the links, I knew both, but I think they will help others. Both are great projects.
Hi,
Interesting discussion! We are also working for years with KEIL for our 8051 derivatives. Now we need to go RF, so after some study we end up with TI/CHipcon's CC2430 as an ideal solution (still focus on the competition however). But then, there was this IAR environment ONLY (and indeed too expensive) which is a pitty. From TI, we heard that they experimented with KEIL but 'the outcome' wasn't successful???
But, from this forum, there seem to be some possibilities, although I wander? Did anyone actually used KEIL for some SIMPLICITI (probably that doable!) or better, some ZIGBEE2006 stack application? It would be perfect indeed, despite differences in optimization issues for now?!? Anyway, I'm thinking what to do next?
Regards,
Michel.
Yep I agree, If only TI was like Microchip with it's app notes and development tools, especially as I work in the education sector. IAR still want a pretty penny even with educational discount.
I, like many others like to start by adapting examples given by manufacturers and IAR is the way to go with the CC's and the smart rf04. I think if you spend quite a lot of money on a development kit you should be able to develop for longer than 60 days with it!
Gareth.
Hi all,
Great discussion. Feel free to use any compiler and IDE you would like for all other LPW software packages except for our ZigBee solution with its limitations on IDE usage.
For example, SimpliciTI is provide as source code, so feel free to build it with your IDE and compiler of choice for your preferred LPW transceiver or LPW RF SoC solution. From a TI perspective with MSP430 + LPW, CCE is actutally the most interesting option to explore
Code Composer Essentials:
http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/msp-cce430.html?DCMP=MSP430_cce&HQS=Other+OT+cce
LPWRocks:Hi all,Great discussion. Feel free to use any compiler and IDE you would like for all other LPW software packages except for our ZigBee solution with its limitations on IDE usage. For example, SimpliciTI is provide as source code, so feel free to build it with your IDE and compiler of choice for your preferred LPW transceiver or LPW RF SoC solution.
For example, SimpliciTI is provide as source code, so feel free to build it with your IDE and compiler of choice for your preferred LPW transceiver or LPW RF SoC solution.
This is exactly one of the reasons I'm looking hard at TI for a low-power wireless design (MSP430 + CC2500). I want to use Rowley's CrossStudio & my wireless needs are pretty basic - perfectly handled by SimpliciTi & the 2500 - so this is a viable solution. If Simpliciti was tied to a toolset or just provided as libraries (as opposed to source), I'd be looking at other solutions.
So those of you at TI - good job, good technical & business decisions regarding SimpliciTI... a little positive feedback never hurt anyone!
P.S. I might give CCE v3 a shot down the road - I had fun (sarcasm on) with CC v2 working on a C54xx DSP project & that made me gun shy. The compiler & debugger were fine, but the memory mapping utility (a bit more complex on a DSP) was frightful & complicated. Then on forums & boards people calling CCE things like "Code Contorter" doesn't make me any more comfortable. Never used CCE for the MSP430 though in all fairness. The price is attractive and the free version is pretty generous.
Did you port SimpliciTI to CCE v3?
LPWRocks:Did you port SimpliciTI to CCE v3? LPWRocks
No I didn't port SimpliciTI to CCE3 .... the 2 main IDEs I've been using are IAR & Rowley.... I like IAR's interface more, to me it is cleaner & more intuitive... Rowley seems to be over-the-top with inheritance & details (e.g. to debug, you must first "attach to a target" and then "start debugging") - for such a straightforward uC family, the Rowley CrossStudio IDE seems to be a bit overly-complicated, but the price is more reasonable than IAR and it seems to have the same capabilities.
CCE3 might be the best of both worlds, but I'm a little "gun shy" after using CCv2 on the DSP side (that was 4 years ago and a different processor family, so maybe that's not a fair comparison to make)
Also maybe you can confirm this - I believe at MSP430 Day a few months back the instructor indicated that not only do you get 2x the project code size with the free version of CCE3 (compared to IAR), but also it compiles/builds IAR projects "out of the box", at least mostly.
It's just that with any IDE/toolset, you always have to make an investment in the learning curve, and once you've become proficient in an IDE, it's so much easier just to stick with it.
Hi RF-Explorer,
Great feedback
What about benchmark numbers? Have you been able to dig into this a little bit too? How is Rowley compared to IAR?
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