7. Software Development Tools
7.1. SmartSnippets™ Introduction
Dialog SmartSnippets™ Studio is a royalty-free software development platform for Smartbond™ devices. It fully supports the DA1469x family of devices.
SmartSnippets™ Studio contains:
SmartSnippets™ IDE: Eclipse CDT based IDE with pre-configured plugins to provide the build/debug environment
SmartSnippets™ DA1469x SDK
SmartSnippets™ Toolbox: A tool suite covering all software development requirements, including:
Programming and loading of firmware into integrated RAM, OTP and Flash
Power profiling
SmartSnippets™ Documentation
The SmartSnippets™ IDE is enabled by an on-board J-Link debugger from SEGGER. This offers standard debug capabilities such as single stepping, setting breakpoints, software download and many more. For more details on the debugger capabilities, visit https://www.segger.com/.
7.2. SmartSnippets™ Studio Installation and Starting
This section describes the installation of SmartSnippets™ Studio. For further reading the installation procedure is described in detail in UM-B-057 SmartSnippets Studio User Manual.
Note
The SmartSnippets™ Studio version should be 2.0.8 and above if you wish to use Eclipse/GCC.
Registration is required in order to download the SmartSnippets™.
Warning
Please be aware that if you have an Antivirus software is installed in your machine, it could slow down the SmartSnippets™ Studio installation due to the scan.
7.2.1. Windows
Run the SmartSnippets™ Studio installer (.msi). Several of the required tools will automatically install and others need to be manually downloaded and installed.
Select the recommended version or a newer one from of SEGGER J-Link GDB server and Click Next.
Select the destination folder for the SmartSnippets™ Studio and click “Next”. The default installation location
C:/DiaSemi
is recommended
The installation of the SmartSnippets™ Studio will then start.
After the successful installation of the SmartSnippets™ Studio next screen will appear.
Click Finish and wait for the SmartSnippets™ Studio to start.
When SmartSnippets™ Studio starts for the first time, the user must configure it. The necessary configurations are the following:
Select the workspace folder for SmartSnippets™ Studio. This should be the created directory inside
workspace_SmartSnippets_Studio
.All the other tools required by the SDK and SmartSnippets™ Studio will be automatically installed, such as GNU ARM GCC, SmartSnippets Toolbox, SEGGER drivers etc. On a clean PC they will probably not be there and so the next steps are to download and install them.
Tick the download and install radio button and then press Download button for SEGGER Ozone tool
This will install the tool to
C:\Program Files (x86)\SEGGER\Ozone V2.60c
. Then press Next.
Note
Users are required to download and install tools marked as mandatory by clicking the download button or specifying an installation folder if the tool is already installed externally. Some tools can be optional, in which case Skip button will show
The Next button is enabled only after the mandatory tools are successfully installed or a valid installation path is specified.
Then, the installer will guide user to install SEGGER JLink version 6.42b or later. They are available from the SEGGER website Refer to Figure 18
The SDK Tools Installer will prompt for the installation of GCC. Select Download and install the required version and click Download. After the download is complete, the green completion mark appears. Then press the Next button to continue as shown in Figure 19.
The SDK Tools Installer will prompt for the installation of SEGGER SystemView, Refer to Figure 20
The last page of the wizard shows a summary of all installed tools. Installation of optional tools can be skipped in the wizard. The user’s choice to skip an optional tool is remembered by SmartSnippets™ Studio so that the wizard does not ask again for the installation of this tool the next time the wizard is launched.
7.2.2. Linux
Before running the installer, it is necessary to install some Linux packages that are mandatory for the execution of SmartSnippets™ Studio. Without them SmartSnippets™ Studio will not run correctly but will fail with no reported error.
For CentOS 7:
sudo yum install install epel-release
sudo yum install webkitgtk.x86_64
sudo yum install glibc.i696 ncurses-libs.i696
sudo yum install qt-x11
(required for SystemView tool)For Fedora 25:
sudo yum install webkitgtk.x86_64
sudo yum install glibc.i696 ncurses-libs.i696
sudo yum install gcc-c++
sudo yum install libncurses.so.5
For Ubuntu 16.04.1 install:
sudo apt-get install libz1:i386 libncurses5:i386 libbz2-1.0:i386
sudo apt-get install libwebkitgtk-1.0-0 libwebkitgtk-3.0-0
sudo apt-get install gawk
The first step is to make the SmartSnippets™ Studio installer executable.
$chmod a+x SmartSnippets_Studio-linux.gtk.x86_64-1.6.3.run
And then run it.
$./SmartSnippets_Studio-linux.gtk.x86_64-1.6.3.run
Several of the required tools will automatically install and others need to be manually downloaded and installed.
Install the recommended version of SEGGER J-Link GDB server. The V6.14h version will be installed by default. If you have recent SEGGER J-Link version you have just to select the path where it is already installed, as shown in Figure 26
Select the destination folder for the SmartSnippets™ Studio
The installation of the SmartSnippets™ Studio will then start.
After the successful installation of the SmartSnippets™ Studio click Finish on the next screen that will appear and wait for the SmartSnippets™ Studio to start.
When SmartSnippets™ Studio starts it will check which SEGGER tools are installed. On a clean PC they will probably not be there and so the next steps are to download and install them
Tick the download and install radio button and then press Download button for SEGGER Ozone tool. The download will then start and the SEGGER Ozone tool will be installed automatically. This will install the tool to
/opt/SEGGER/ozone/2.60c
. Use the Browse button to find this folder and then press Next.
Then, the installer will guide user to install SEGGER JLink.
Then, the installer will guide user to install GCC. Browse button to find this folder and then press Next.
The final stage is to install SEGGER SystemView.
The last page of the wizard shows a summary of all installed tools. Installation of optional tools can be skipped in the wizard. The user’s choice to skip an optional tool is remembered by SmartSnippets™ Studio so that the wizard does not ask again for the installation of this tool the next time the wizard is launched.
7.4. Extracting and using the SDK
As SmartSnippets™ Studio is an Eclipse based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) all the source files are contained within a workspace folder which contains all the project sources, build configurations etc.
In the user directory (Windows or Linux) create a directory called
workspace_SmartSnippets_Studio
.
Extract the contents of the SDK zip file to the workspace folder.
Warning
When selecting the SDK directory in the The SmartSnippets™ Studio, please make sure to select the level with the name (i.e. DA1469x_SDK_10.x.y.z
) otherwise the projects will not build. It must contain the contents of the directory as shown in Figure 30. This shows a Windows filesystem, the principle is the same for a Linux filesystem.
As the workspace is the same directory as the SDK it means that all edits to files in the workspace change the contents of the SDK. This means that all projects should be developed in different workspaces and so each workspace needs to be created with an extraction from the original SDK zip file as there is no longer a clean copy of the SDK on which to base new projects.
Note
In case the selected workspace does not correspond to a valid SDK and the user selected the “Take no action” option in the dialog asking how to treat the selected workspace Figure 31. Different level needs to be selected.
7.5. Additional Software
The SmartSnippets™ Toolbox, Figure 32, is focused on enabling the process of programming flash and optimizing code for optimal power performance by allowing:
The re-programming of the internal QSPI with the actual application compiled image.
An accurate examination of the power profile and the effects of any executed application software.
The seamless download and execution of a certain software image to RAM over UART.
SmartSnippets™ Toolbox is also supported by other utilities such as the Command Line Interface (CLI) Programmer. The CLI Programmer is a command line tool for programming the DA1469x family of devices. It allows erasing and programming the device Flash or OTP memory. This tool may be used both in development and on the production line. The CLI Programmer will be installed as an integrated part of the SmartSnippets™ DA1469x SDK.
The SmartSnippets™ framework makes maximum use of the available features on the main board like the on board current sensing circuitry to allow developers of Bluetooth applications to work without expensive and bulky equipment such as a Digital Multi Meter (DMM). The tool provides full visibility on the chip activity, which is crucial in the developing of ultra-low power wireless applications.