Board features

1. STM32F469NIH6 microcontroller featuring ARM® Cortex®-M4 core and 324 Kbytes of RAM
2. 4” TFT Color LCD Touch Display
3. 128-Mbit SDRAM
4. 128 Mbit QSPI NOR Flash

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
• STM32CubeF4 SDK 1.24.0 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.

Qt Creator IDE

• Launch Qt Creator and select Tools > Options > Devices > MCU.
• Select the Qt for MCUs 1.7 - STM32F469I-DISCOVERY-BAREMETAL 24bpp from the drop-down list for Target supported by the Qt for MCUs SDK.
• 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 example 1.1.0.
• 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.
• 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 your System 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_F4_SDK_PATH environment variable and set its value to the following:

  <QT_INSTALL_PATH>\Tools\QtMCUs\STM\STM32Cube_FW_F4_<version>

  where, <QT_INSTALL_PATH> is the Qt install directory.

Build configuration

Qt Creator provides a build configuration with the kit that you created earlier for the Qt for MCUs 1.7 - STM32F469I-DISCOVERY-BAREMETAL 24bpp target. 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 stm32f469i-discovery-baremetal for this board.

  -DQUL_PLATFORM=stm32f469i-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 and 24-bit, with 24-bit being the default.

  Note: If this variable is not set, default color depth is used while configuring for the platform.

  -DQUL_COLOR_DEPTH=24

  Note: The precompiled evaluation binaries support only 24-bit color depth.

• 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.

  As STM32F469i Discovery board is equipped with a fast external flash, which can be used to store assets that are used for blending/blitting operations, without the need to copy those into RAM.

Prebuilt demos and examples

Package for STM32F469I-DISCO board is provided with following prebuilt demos

• thermo

You can flash them onto the device using images from the demos_images folder. Follow the flashing instructions for ST boards, and use STM32469I-DISCO as the board name selecting N25Q128A_STM32469I-DISCO as the external loader script.

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=STM32F469I-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 ).

Profiling application

Qt Quick Ultralite does not support profiling yet.

Known limitations

STM32F469NI does not have double-precision floating-point support. Care should be taken to avoid using them.