Technical discussions about Freescale (Motorola) DSPs (including the DSP56000, DSP56300, DSP56600, 56800 DSPs).
Moin, I just installed this new Symphony Studio from freescale website: http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=SYMPH_STUDIO&fpsp=1&tab= Design_Tools_Tab However, I tried and I am still guessing who and what it is made for. The compiler that is part of it has not improved, still the old buggy gnu 1.37 port, only it says "freescale"now instead of motorola. Still no fractional datatypes and acceptable code generated. They say there is a simulator, even for the new dual core 5672X family, but that is inaccessible. Tried to load example projects, but the "load project" entry is disabled. So what is this 72MB piece of software good for? Or was I expecting too much? Stefan
Dear Stefan, basically the Symphony Studio is a good idea, I appreciate this for several reasons - even if they are not that important to me personally: - Today the offer of an IDE is mandatory for a silicon manufaturer, otherwise their product is not accepted by developers, Freescale lost lots of designs to ADI, TI and others for that reason. If you do not need this (as I do) consider this software as a marketing instrument hat helps to keep this processor architecture available to us (there are some benefits that you even cannot find in other silicon like multiple data busses, 24bit data paths etc. according to a low power consumption). The times of the command line wizards are gone - the existing tools (Suite56) are not accepted by thoday's programmers anymore. - There are different (free) IDE platforms available that could have been adopted. Chosing Eclipse was not the worst idea since it has gained a wide acceptance especially by JAVA and embedded systems programmers (once you can work with this you can switch easily to other platforms like Atmel AVR32 and many others). - The idea to use Eclipse will give further benefits: Probably the Tasking C compiler will be offered as plug in (I have read is one of the Freescale publications that a third party compiler will be released - who else has got one for the DSP56xxx?). Consider the GCC as 'dummy' C compiler plug in if you do not like it (using C to generate DSP programs is not the very best idea in general ;-)). Other plug ins - either free or commercial will follow. Freescale also announced a filter design plug in for Symphony Studio. - The integration of various third party JTAG debug interfaces is possible (and already done for many of them). - During the beta test I could use the DSP56370 simulator (I will figure out again how I did this) so I assume it works in version 1.0 as well. Unfortunately the accompanying documentation does not describe how to do this - if I can find the beta documentation (that describes how to use the simulator/debugger) again I can forwared this to you. - I hope that this is just the beginning for new activities that will follow! Simulator: Unfortunately it is not possible to open a project like one would expect, use 'import' -> 'file system' after defining a new project. Choose the examples (C tutorial and ASM tutorial) and import them to your project (this is described in the documentation). Best regards Christian > Moin, > > I just installed this new Symphony Studio from freescale website: > http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=SYMPH_STUDIO&fpsp=1&tab= Design_Tools_Tab > > However, I tried and I am still guessing who and what it is made for. > The compiler that is part of it has not improved, still the old > buggy gnu 1.37 port, only it says "freescale"now instead of motorola. > Still no fractional datatypes and acceptable code generated. > > They say there is a simulator, even for the new dual core 5672X family, > but that is inaccessible. Tried to load example projects, but the > "load project" entry is disabled. > > So what is this 72MB piece of software good for? > Or was I expecting too much? > > Stefan >
Suite56 was a disjointed conglomeration of different 56300 code generation utilities. It was nowhere near even a partial development environment as there were no editing or project management/build facilities - each developer had to create his own build and project management scripts. In contrast, Symphony Studio is a more complete IDE that includes a built-in source highlighting editor, build and management facilities, and an integrated GUI debugger (customized for 56300 but based on the open GDB protocol). Code editing, compiling/assembling and debugging can now all occur within one application and environment. There are even hooks available for using external version control utilities inherited from the Eclipse framework, making the IDE useful in a group environment. And there is still no cost to download and use the tool suite, unlike other Freescale or other vendor software development tools. Symphony Studio offers a unified GUI debugging interface unlike Suite56 where the software simulator was separate from the hardware debugger. The Eclipse framework provides a GUI GDB debugger which interfaces to a custom CLI GDB debugger for the 56300 which connects to a GDB remote server (where the remote server can be considered to be the equivalent of CCS in Suite56). Symphony Studio has support for legacy parallel port command converters built-in, and adds support for FT2232-based JTAG adapters (one of which is already commercially availale for the 56300 devices). The open nature of the GDB debugging protocol also enables third parties to implement GDB remote servers for their own JTAG adapter hardware (two third parties already offer Symphony Studio hardware support). Suite56 only offers parallel support and absolutely no third party JTAG adapter support. The software simulator is also available as another GDB remote server and may be accessed through the SIMAPI GDB Server template under the Run > External Tools > External Tools... menu. Symphony Studio is very different than Suite56, there is no denying that fact. But since I've been using it, I very much prefer it to Suite56 for nearly everything. --d --- In m...@yahoogroups.com, "Christian Langen" <clangen@...> wrote: > > Dear Stefan, > > basically the Symphony Studio is a good idea, I appreciate this for several reasons - even if they are not that important to me personally: > > - Today the offer of an IDE is mandatory for a silicon manufaturer, otherwise their product is not accepted by developers, Freescale lost lots of designs to ADI, TI and others for that reason. If you do not need this (as I do) consider this software as a marketing instrument hat helps to keep this processor architecture available to us (there are some benefits that you even cannot find in other silicon like multiple data busses, 24bit data paths etc. according to a low power consumption). The times of the command line wizards are gone - the existing tools (Suite56) are not accepted by thoday's programmers anymore. > > - There are different (free) IDE platforms available that could have been adopted. Chosing Eclipse was not the worst idea since it has gained a wide acceptance especially by JAVA and embedded systems programmers (once you can work with this you can switch easily to other platforms like Atmel AVR32 and many others). > > - The idea to use Eclipse will give further benefits: Probably the Tasking C compiler will be offered as plug in (I have read is one of the Freescale publications that a third party compiler will be released - who else has got one for the DSP56xxx?). Consider the GCC as 'dummy' C compiler plug in if you do not like it (using C to generate DSP programs is not the very best idea in general ;-)). Other plug ins - either free or commercial will follow. Freescale also announced a filter design plug in for Symphony Studio. > > - The integration of various third party JTAG debug interfaces is possible (and already done for many of them). > > - During the beta test I could use the DSP56370 simulator (I will figure out again how I did this) so I assume it works in version 1.0 as well. Unfortunately the accompanying documentation does not describe how to do this - if I can find the beta documentation (that describes how to use the simulator/debugger) again I can forwared this to you. > > - I hope that this is just the beginning for new activities that will follow! > > Simulator: > Unfortunately it is not possible to open a project like one would expect, use 'import' -> 'file system' after defining a new project. Choose the examples (C tutorial and ASM tutorial) and import them to your project (this is described in the documentation). > > Best regards > > Christian > > > Moin, > > > > I just installed this new Symphony Studio from freescale website: > > http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=SYMPH_STUDIO&fpsp=1&tab= Design_Tools_Tab > > > > However, I tried and I am still guessing who and what it is made for. > > The compiler that is part of it has not improved, still the old > > buggy gnu 1.37 port, only it says "freescale"now instead of motorola. > > Still no fractional datatypes and acceptable code generated. > > > > They say there is a simulator, even for the new dual core 5672X family, > > but that is inaccessible. Tried to load example projects, but the > > "load project" entry is disabled. > > > > So what is this 72MB piece of software good for? > > Or was I expecting too much? > > > > Stefan >