{"id":14253,"date":"2018-08-05T22:32:11","date_gmt":"2018-08-06T02:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/embedded-lab.com\/blog\/?p=14253"},"modified":"2019-12-16T10:34:50","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T15:34:50","slug":"getting-started-nuvoton-8-bit-microcontrollers-coding-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/embedded-lab.com\/blog\/getting-started-nuvoton-8-bit-microcontrollers-coding-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Started with Nuvoton 8-bit Microcontrollers – Coding Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is a continuation of the first post on Nuvoton N76E003 microcontroller here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"s-l1600\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

About the N76E006 Test Board<\/h1>\n

Shown below are the actual photo, the PCB layout and the schematic of the unofficial cheap N76E003 test\/development board. This is the board I will be using in this tutorial series.<\/p>\n

\"board\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There is nothing much about the 30mm x 43.5mm board. Everything is visible and neat. However, having the schematic alongside the board layout in possession is a great advantage. There are two sidewise header that bring out the GPIO pins and positive supply rails. There is another header opposite to the USB port. This header is for connecting a Nulink programmer-debugger interface and it also has a serial port interface brought out straight from the N76E003 chip. This serial port is useful for quickly debugging\/testing stuffs with a serial port monitor. There is an LED connected with P15 pin via a computer jumper. The only thing that is wrong in this board is the crystal resonator part. N76E003 has an external clock input pin but it is meant to be used with active oscillators\/crystal modules. In the official, SDK there is no such points to connect an external crystal resonator.\u00a0 The internal high frequency oscillator is accurate enough for most cases.<\/p>\n

At this point, I would like to thank Electro Dragon for these images because they are the only ones who shared these resources online.<\/p>\n

\"2018-02-12_235823\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Shown below is the official SDK board\u2019s schematic:<\/p>\n

\"Official<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Coding Nuvoton N76E003<\/h1>\n

When entering a new environment, things are not very easy at first. It takes times to get acquainted with new the new environment, new tools and new stuffs. New means everything different from the ones that you have been using prior to its introduction. In many occasions, I had trouble playing with new microcontrollers due to this. However, after some decent play offs things unfolded themselves.<\/p>\n

President JFK\u2019s speech on lunar landing should be an inspirational note for everyone who is trying to do something new or something that he\/she has never done before:<\/p>\n

\n

We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Both Keil and IAR are excellent tools for coding Nuvoton MCUs. I have used both and everything is same in both cases. Literally there is no difference at all. I won\u2019t recommend which one to use and I leave the choice to the readers. However, there are some areas where you may find difficulty porting codes of one compiler to the other. The table below summarizes some of these differences.<\/p>\n

\"keil<\/a><\/p>\n

Two more things I would like to highlight here. Firstly, both Keil and IAR compiler can throw some errors during code compilations. Most of these errors are due to BSP definitions. One such error is in the line below:<\/p>\n

\"error\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If you try to use set_P0S_6<\/em><\/strong> definition, IAR sometimes throws an error because it can\u2019t find BIT_TMP<\/em><\/strong>. However, there are other similar definitions that don\u2019t throw such error and in Keil you won\u2019t notice something like this. Such things are nasty illogical surprises. We have to understand that the BSPs are still in development. Always remember that the datasheet is your friend. I suggest that when you try out the examples I have shown here, you read the relevant parts of the datasheet to enhance learning and understanding.<\/p>\n

The other thing to note is the fact that not always we have the luxury to avoid register-level coding and so when needed we must have the right knowledge to use them. We can also use bit-level manipulations as shown below:<\/p>\n

\"Coding\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sometimes but not always, we have to code things the old ways. Sometimes mixing assembly code with C code becomes a necessity. For instance, the software delay library uses this concept.<\/p>\n

There are other aspects to consider too like case sensitivity and coding conventions. It is wise to choose interrupt-driven methods over polling-based ones. Codes should be included in hierarchical orders. Like such there are tons of stuffs to make your code smart and error-free. The best source of knowledge of such things and much more are app notes of various manufacturers.<\/p>\n

Whenever making a new library, add the followings in your library\u2019s source code along with other header files of your choice to avoid errors and nasty surprises:<\/p>\n

\"Common<\/a><\/p>\n

Additionally, I have made a set of files called \u201cExtended_Functions<\/em><\/strong>\u201d. Here I added all the functions that we will need almost every time when we deal with common internal hardware like timers, ADC, etc. These files are like repositories of all the additional functions that I made for some internal hardware \u2013 something that Nuvoton didn\u2019t provide and something that makes coding lot easier. I’ll share these and all the codes with the PDF of the tutorials after Part 2 of this tutorial series.<\/p>\n

Here I’m sharing two videos to demonstrate how to code and add custom-made library files in both Keil C51 and IAR Embedded-Workbench compliers.<\/p>\n