C
STM32F7508 Discovery Kit Setup Instructions
This topic helps you setup the development environment for STM's STM32F7508 discovery kit.
Board features
- STM32F750N8H6 MCU featuring ARM® Cortex®-M7, 64-KBytes Flash, 340-kbytes RAM
- 4.3” 480x272 Touch Display
- 16-Mbit SRAM memory
- 128-Mbit Quad-SPI Flash memory
- 128-Mbit SDRAM
Setting up development environment
Prerequisites
Use the Qt online installer to install the following prerequisites. You can download the installer from your Qt account.
- Qt for MCUs SDK
- Qt Creator v4.12.4 or newer
- CMake 3.15 or newer
- Ninja 1.10.0 or newer
Note: Ninja is an optional build tool and can be replaced with others like JOM or NMake. It is not needed when using Qt Creator.
- ARM Toolchain 8-2019-q3-update or IAR Build Tools for Arm V8.50, depending on which toolchain you are using
- STM32CubeF7 SDK 1.16.0 or newer
- STM Cube Programmer 2.4.0 or newer
Note: Ensure that it is installed in the default location (
C:\Program Files\STMicroelectronics\STM32Cube\STM32CubeProgrammer\
).
Note: The Qt online installer does not install the STM Cube Programmer by default. You must select it explicitly from the list of third-party tools and SDKs.
In addition, flash the bootloader image onto the device. For more information, see Bootloader Flashing Instructions for ST boards.
Qt Creator IDE
- Launch Qt Creator and select Tools > Options > Devices > MCU.
- Select the one of the targets from the drop-down list for Target supported by the Qt for MCUs SDK:
- Qt for MCUs 1.7 - STM32F7508-DISCOVERY-BAREMETAL 16bpp
- Qt for MCUs 1.7 - STM32F7508-DISCOVERY-BAREMETAL 32bpp
- Qt for MCUs 1.7 - STM32F7508-DISCOVERY-FREERTOS 16bpp
- Qt for MCUs 1.7 - STM32F7508-DISCOVERY-FREERTOS 32bpp
- Provide the STM32CubeProgrammer install path if it is not installed in the default location.
- In the Requirements section, ensure that the platform-specific requirements are met.
- Select Automatically create kits for all available targets on start to create kits automatically.
Note: You could also manually create/remove kits using Create Kit and Remove Kit.
- Click Apply and restart Qt Creator if you choose to create kits automatically.
Note: The Automatically create kits for all available targets on start option is available from Qt Creator v4.14 onwards. On older versions of Qt Creator, you have to explictly create or remove kits using Create kit or Remove kit.
Command line setup
To get started from the command line, ensure that the following these instructions:
Qul_DIR
to the Qt for MCUs SDK install path.<QT_INSTALL_PATH>\QtMCUs\<VERSION>
where,
<QT_INSTALL_PATH>
is the Qt install directory,- and
<VERSION>
is the directory containing the Qt Quick Ultralite version you are using, for example1.1.0
.
- Toolchain install path, depending on which toolchain is being used
- For the armgcc toolchain, set
ARMGCC_DIR
to the ARM Toolchain install path.
OR
- For the IAR toolchain, set
IAR_ARM_COMPILER_DIR
to the IAR Build Tools install path.
- For the armgcc toolchain, set
- Add the CMake and Ninja tools to your system
PATH
. If you installed these tools using the Qt online installer, they are installed under<QT_INSTALL_PATH>\Tools
. - Add STM32CubeProg install directory to
System PATH
if it is not installed in the default location. - Add
ST-LINK_gdbserver.exe
directory to yourSystem PATH
<STM32_CUBE_IDE_INSTALL_PATH>\stm32cubeide_1.3.0\plugins\com.st.stm32cube.ide.mcu.externaltools.stlink-gdb-server.win32_1.3.0.202002181050\tools\bin
where,
<STM32_CUBE_IDE_INSTALL_PATH>
is the Cube IDE install path.Note: STM32CubeIDE is optional and required only for on-chip debugging purposes.
- Create the
STM32Cube_FW_F7_SDK_PATH
environment variable and set it to the following path:<QT_INSTALL_PATH>\Tools\QtMCUs\STM\STM32Cube_FW_F7_V<version>
where,
<QT_INSTALL_PATH>
is the Qt install directory.
Build configuration
Qt Creator provides a build configuration with the kits that you created earlier for the targets. If you are using a command-line setup, configure using the following CMake variables. For more information, see the CMake Manual.
- QUL_PLATFORM
The platform to build must be set to
stm32f7508-discovery-baremetal
for this board.-DQUL_PLATFORM=stm32f7508-discovery-baremetal
- CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE
This platform supports the armgcc and IAR toolchains.
-DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=%Qul_DIR%\lib\cmake\Qul\toolchain\armgcc.cmake
OR
-DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=%Qul_DIR%\lib\cmake\Qul\toolchain\iar.cmake
- QUL_COLOR_DEPTH
The supported color depths by this platform are 16-bit or 32-bit, with 32-bit being the default.
Note: If this variable is not set, default color depth is used while configuring for the platform.
-DQUL_COLOR_DEPTH=32
- QUL_COPY_TO_RAM
By default, the asset data for application is copied to SDRAM on application startup. In order to keep resources in external flash, and not load it to RAM on startup, use the QUL_COPY_TO_RAM CMake option with the value
Never
when adding assets to the application with qul_add_resource.
Prebuilt demos and examples
The package for STM32F7508-DISCOVERY
board comes with the following prebuilt demo binaries
You can find it in the demos_images
directory.
See Flashing Instructions for ST boards, for information about flashing the device.
For this board, select N25Q128A_STM32F7508-DISCO
as the external loader.
Building applications with prebuilt Qt Quick Ultralite libraries
Qt Creator IDE
Open the CMake project file for the example you want to build and configure it with the kit you created earlier. Once the project is configured, select Run or press Ctrl+r on your keyboard to build and flash the binary to the target.
Command line
The following example builds the watch
demo for this board:
cd %Qul_DIR%\demos\watch mkdir build cd build cmake .. -G "Ninja" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=%Qul_DIR%\lib\cmake\Qul\toolchain\armgcc.cmake -DQUL_PLATFORM=STM32F7508-DISCOVERY-baremetal cmake --build .
Once you have successfully built the watch
demo, you can flash it from the command line:
cmake --build . --target flash_watch
The same procedure applies to any other application.
Reading debug messages
By default, the output of printf
calls are redirected to a virtual serial port, which is exposed on the host machine via USB.
Debugging
- Open terminal window and run the following command:
ST-LINK_gdbserver.exe -cp "<STM32_CUBE_PROG_INSTALL_PATH>\bin"
where,
<STM32_CUBE_PROG_INSTALL_PATH>
is the directory where you've installed the Cube Programmer tool.GDB Server is now listening for TCP connections on the default port,
61234
.Note: Actual TCP port used by
ST-LINK_gdbserver
is printed out on gdbserver's console. - Run
arm-none-eabi-gdb
in a separate console%ARMGCC_DIR%\bin\arm-none-eabi-gdb.exe <PATH_TO>\your_app.elf
- Connect to the target via the gdbserver in the
arm-none-eabi-gdb
console using(gdb) target remote 127.0.0.1:61234
Troubleshooting
ST-LINK_gdbserver
requires up-to-date ST-LINK firmware to be installed. If you see the following error:
Error in initializing ST-LINK device. Reason: ST-LINK firmware upgrade required.
you must upgrade the firmware to the latest version using the STM32CubeProgrammer tool.
If the problem persists after upgrade, retry with ST-LINK Upgrade
tool from the ST webpage ( Download ).
Available under certain Qt licenses.
Find out more.