The project described on this page demonstrates the FreeRTOS ARM Cortex-M0 IAR port.
It is configured to run on the STM320518-EVAL evaluation board, which is fitted
with an STM32F051 microcontroller.
The project can be configured to
create either a basic blinky style demo, or a more comprehensive test and demo
application that includes some of the FreeRTOS standard demo tasks.
Screen shot of the FreeRTOS state viewer plug-in
that ships with the IAR IDE as standard.
Note: If this project fails to build then it is likely the version of IAR
Embedded Workbench being used is too old. If this is the case, then it is also
likely that the project file has been (silently) corrupted and will need to be
restored to its original state before it can be built even with an updated IAR version.
IMPORTANT! Notes on using the IAR ARM Cortex-M0 Demo
Please read all the following points before using this RTOS port.
The FreeRTOS download contains the source code for all the FreeRTOS ports, so
includes many more files than are needed by this demo.
See the Source Code Organization
section for a description of the downloaded files and information on creating a
new project.
The IAR EWARM workspace for the FreeRTOS STM32F0 demo application is called RTOSDemo.eww,
and is located in the FreeRTOS/Demo/CORTEX_M0_STM32F0518_IAR directory. Note that
the workspace was created prior to STM32F0 support being included in EWARM, and as such, the
project is configured to use a generic ARM Cortex-M0 core, and the instructions provided on this
page describe the separate ST-Link utility being used to program the microcontroller flash
memory.
The demo uses the LEDs that are integrated onto the STM320518-EVAL board, so no
hardware setup is required.
Building and running the demo application
The single RTOSDemo project can be configured to run
a simple blinky style project, or a more comprehensive test and demo application. The
mainCREATE_SIMPLE_BLINKY_DEMO_ONLY setting at the top of main.c is used to select
between the two. Set mainCREATE_SIMPLE_BLINKY_DEMO_ONLY to one to create the
basic Blinky style demo. Set mainCREATE_SIMPLE_BLINKY_DEMO_ONLY to 0 to create
the more comprehensive test and demo application.
Open FreeRTOS/Demo/CORTEX_M0_STM32F0518_IAR/RTOSDemo.eww in the
IAR Embedded Workbench IDE.
Set the mainCREATE_SIMPLE_BLINKY_DEMO_ONLY constant to generate the required demo functionality (as
noted above), before building the project.
Power up the STM320518-EVAL board, then connect a USB cable between the
USB port labelled ST-LINK/V2 (SN3) and the host computer.
Open FreeRTOS/Demo/CORTEX_M0_STM32F0518_IAR/Debug/RTOSDemo.bin
in the ST-LINK utility program (a copy of which is provided on the CD that comes
with the STM320518-EVAL hardware), then program the microcontroller flash
memory. Later versions of the IAR Embedded Workbench will probably have
the capability of programming the flash memory from within the IAR IDE,
removing the need to use the separate ST-LINK utility.
Select "Disconnect" from the ST-LINK utility's "Target" menu. A debug
session cannot be started from the IAR IDE while the ST-LINK utility is
connected to the hardware.
Back in the IAR Embedded Workbench IDE - select "Debug without Downloading"
from the IDE's "Project" menu to start a debug session.
Functionality with mainCREATE_SIMPLE_BLINKY_DEMO_ONLY set to 1
Setting mainCREATE_SIMPLE_BLINKY_DEMO_ONLY to 1 results in main() calling
main_blinky(). main_blinky() sets up a very simple demo, as
described below.
The main_blinky() Function:
main_blinky() creates one queue, and two tasks. It then starts the
scheduler.
The Queue Send Task:
The queue send task is implemented by the prvQueueSendTask() function in main_blinky.c.
prvQueueSendTask() sits in a loop that causes it to repeatedly block for
200 milliseconds, before sending the value 100 to the queue that was created
within main_blinky(). Once the value is sent, the task loops back around to block for
another 200 milliseconds.
The Queue Receive Task:
The queue receive task is implemented by the prvQueueReceiveTask() function
in main_blinky.c. prvQueueReceiveTask() sits in a loop where it repeatedly blocks on
attempts to read data from the queue that was created within main_blinky(). When data
is received, the task checks the value of the data, and if the value equals
the expected 100, toggles LED LD1. The 'block time' parameter passed to
the queue receive function specifies that the task should be held in the Blocked
state indefinitely to wait for data to be available on the queue. The queue
receive task will only leave the Blocked state when the queue send task writes
to the queue. As the queue send task writes to the queue every 200
milliseconds, the queue receive task leaves the Blocked state every 200
milliseconds, and therefore toggles LED LD1 every 200 milliseconds.
Functionality with mainCREATE_SIMPLE_BLINKY_DEMO_ONLY set to 0
Setting mainCREATE_SIMPLE_BLINKY_DEMO_ONLY to 0 results in main() calling
main_full(). main_full() sets up a more comprehensive test and demo application,
as described below.
The main_full() Function:
main_full() creates a set of standard demo tasks, some application specific
test tasks, and a timer. It then starts the
scheduler.
The "Reg Test" Tasks:
These fill the registers with known values, then check
that each register maintains its expected value for the lifetime of the
task. Each task uses a different set of values. The reg test tasks execute
with a very low priority, so get preempted very frequently. A register
containing an unexpected value is indicative of an error in the context
switching mechanism.
The "Check" software Timer:
The check software timer period is initially set to three
seconds. Its callback function checks that all the standard demo tasks, and
the register check tasks, are not only still executing, but are executing
without reporting any errors. If the check timer callback discovers that a
task has either stalled, or reported an error, then it changes the period of
the check timer from the initial three seconds, to just 200ms. The callback
function also toggles LED LD4 each time it is called. This provides a visual
indication of the system status: If LED LD4 toggles every three seconds,
then no issues have been discovered. If the LED toggles every 200ms, then
an issue has been discovered with at least one task.
Interrupt service routines that cause a context switch have
no special requirements.
The macro portEND_SWITCHING_ISR() can be used to request a context switch from within an ISR.
Note that portEND_SWITCHING_ISR() will leave interrupts enabled.
A dummy interrupt handler
called Dummy_IRQHandler() is provided at the end of main.c as a reference implementation.
Dummy_IRQHandler() is also replicated below.
void Dummy_IRQHandler(void)
{
long lHigherPriorityTaskWoken = pdFALSE;
/* Clear the interrupt if necessary. */
Dummy_ClearITPendingBit();
/* This interrupt does nothing more than demonstrate how to synchronise a
task with an interrupt. A semaphore is used for this purpose. Note
lHigherPriorityTaskWoken is initialised to zero. Only FreeRTOS API functions
that end in "FromISR" can be called from an ISR! */
xSemaphoreGiveFromISR( xTestSemaphore, &lHigherPriorityTaskWoken );
/* If there was a task that was blocked on the semaphore, and giving the
semaphore caused the task to unblock, and the unblocked task has a priority
higher than the current Running state task (the task that this interrupt
interrupted), then lHigherPriorityTaskWoken will have been set to pdTRUE
internally within xSemaphoreGiveFromISR(). Passing pdTRUE into the
portEND_SWITCHING_ISR() macro will result in a context switch being pended to
ensure this interrupt returns directly to the unblocked, higher priority,
task. Passing pdFALSE into portEND_SWITCHING_ISR() has no effect. */
portEND_SWITCHING_ISR( lHigherPriorityTaskWoken );
}
Note that the following lines are included in FreeRTOSConfig.h.
These definitions map the FreeRTOS kernel interrupt handler function names onto
the CMSIS interrupt handler functions names - and in so doing, allow the
ST or IAR provided linker scripts and start up files to be used without modification.
Attention please!: See the page dedicated to setting interrupt priorities on ARM Cortex-M devices. Remember that ARM Cortex-M cores use
numerically low priority numbers to represent HIGH priority interrupts. This
can seem counter-intuitive and is easy to forget! If you wish to assign an
interrupt a low priority do NOT assign it a priority of 0 (or other low numeric
value) as this will result in the interrupt actually having the highest priority
in the system. Also, do not leave
interrupt priorities unassigned, as by default they will have a priority of 0
and therefore the highest priority possible.
RTOS port specific configuration
Configuration items specific to these demos are contained in FreeRTOS/Demo/CORTEX_M0_STM32F0518_IAR/FreeRTOSConfig.h. The
constants defined in FreeRTOSConfig.h can be edited to meet the needs of your application. In particular -
configTICK_RATE_HZ
This sets the frequency of the RTOS tick interrupt. The supplied value of 1000Hz is useful for
testing the RTOS kernel functionality, but is faster than most applications require.
Lowering this value will improve efficiency.
Each port #defines 'portBASE_TYPE' to equal the most efficient data type for that
processor. This port defines portBASE_TYPE to be of type long.
Note that vPortEndScheduler() has not been implemented.
Switching between the pre-emptive and co-operative RTOS kernels
Set the definition configUSE_PREEMPTION within FreeRTOS/Demo/CORTEX_M0_STM32F0518_IAR/FreeRTOSConfig.h to 1 to use pre-emption or 0
to use co-operative.
Memory allocation
Source/Portable/MemMang/heap_2.c is included in the ARM Cortex-M0 demo application project to provide the memory
allocation required by the RTOS kernel.
Please refer to the Memory Management section of the API documentation for
full information.
Copyright (C) 2004-2010 Richard Barry. Copyright (C) 2010-2013 Real Time Engineers Ltd.
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See the files license.txt (included in the distribution) and this copyright notice for more information. FreeRTOSTM and FreeRTOS.orgTM are trade marks of Real Time Engineers Ltd.