National University of Singapore

Dept of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE)

EE2028 Microcontroller Programming and Interfacing

Lab Session 1
Familiarization with Development Environment

Objectives of this session

The objectives of this session are:

1. to become familiar with the LPCXpresso Integrated Development Environment (IDE), and
2. to build, download and execute: (a) a simple assembly language program, and (b) a C
program, on the NXP LPC1769 ARM Cortex-M3 system on chip on the LPCXpresso
board.

Note: In the following Part 1 and Part 2 of this lab session, you will use an assembly language
program and a C program, respectively. At this stage, you are not expected to understand fully
every single line in these programs (although some explanation is given in the last section of
this lab manual). The emphasis of Lab Session 1 is to familiarize yourself with the IDE and its
features, the program compilation and download process, and to ensure that your hardware
and cables, as well as software configuration, are all working properly.

Reference Materials

 LPCXpresso User Guide (13 January 2014) for LPCXpresso IDE Version 6 onwards.
Henceforth, we shall refer to this document as [LUG].
 NXP UM10360 LPC17xx User Manual

Instructions

Log on to the PC in the Digital Electronics Laboratory.

The LPCXpresso Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is already installed on the PC.
Henceforth, we shall refer to this IDE as “LXIDE”.

For your convenience, you can find useful files and reference materials in the EE2024 or
EE2028 folder.
Please do not save any files in this folder.

Note:
You can also install LXIDE on your own PC or notebook PC so that you can work on your
assignments outside the scheduled lab hours.
Get the installation file from the IVLE “Lab and Assignment Sessions” workbin, or directly from
http://www.lpcware.com/lpcxpresso/download (LPCXpresso IDE v6.1.4). You will need to
activate the free edition of the software by registering with NXP - simply follow the instructions
after installation to obtain the activation code and enter it.

You need a USB thumbdrive with at least 50 MB of free space so that it is convenient for you
to work with both the lab PC and your own PC (e.g. after lab hours).
Bring your thumbdrive with you for every lab session.

CAUTION: Be careful not to lose your thumbdrive as it contains all your work. You are advised
to back up often to another place, e.g. your PC hard disk.

EE2028 Lab Session 1

© CK Tham, ECE NUS 1
Create a folder called “EE2028workspace” on your thumbdrive.
Copy the file “EE2028 Part 1.zip” (found in the same IVLE workbin folder) into this folder.

Start up LXIDE.

You are prompted to enter the path to your workspace. Click on Browse, Computer, and locate
your thumbdrive and the “EE2028workspace” directory there.

Read pages 13-14 of [LUG], i.e. Section 3.4 “Major components of the Develop Perspective”,
to familiarise yourself with the 5 main sections of the Develop perspective of LXIDE that you
will be using mainly.

Read pages 15-24 of [LUG], i.e. Section 4 “Importing and Debugging example projects”, to
get an overview of the program compilation, downloading and debugging process. However,
do NOT perform any of the actions yet as you will be guided step-by-step in the next section
of this lab manual.

In Section 4.1 “Importing an Example project”, instead of going to the

.\lpcxpresso\Examples\NXP directory to load the NXP LPC800 example, go to the
“EE2028workspace” directory on your thumbdrive and select “EE2028 Part 1.zip”. Click on
“Next>”, and “Finish” at the next screen to import all the 7 projects listed. This will take a few
minutes.

Part 1. LPC1769_asm_blinky

In this part of the lab session, you will build the LPC1769_asm_blinky project in LXIDE.
LXIDE produces an executable image for the NXP LXP1769 ARM Cortex-M3 system-on-chip.
It then downloads the executable image to the NXP LPC1769 and starts to run it.

Make sure that the correct target platform, i.e. LPC1768 or LPC1769, has been selected. This
is indicated in the lower right corner of LXIDE.

Refer to Section 4.2 Building projects and Section 4.3 Debugging a project of [LUG].

Connect the LPCXpresso board (please handle with care) to the PC using the provided Mini-
B-to-USB cable.

Instead of clicking on Debug 'Blinky', as in shown in Figure 4.5 of [LUG], left click on the
LPC1769_asm_blinky project in the Project Explorer (top left) pane.

Left click on “Debug ‘LPC1769_asm_blinky’ [Debug]” in the Quickstart (bottom left) pane.

You will see various messages in the Console tab (bottom pane) as the program is compiled
and the executable image is downloaded to the LPC1769.

Select the LPC-Link emulator and click “OK”. Refer to Section 4.3.1 Debug Emulator Selection
Dialog of [LUG].

If you have done everything correctly, the red LED on the LPCXpresso board starts to blink
slowly (hence the name “blinky”).

Congratulations! You have just successfully compiled and executed your first ARM
assembly language program!

EE2028 Lab Session 1

© CK Tham, ECE NUS 2
Refer to Section 4.3.2 Controlling execution (pages 23-24) of [LUG].

Click on the Pause button (2 yellow vertical bars) to pause the program.

You can inspect and modify the contents of the processor registers (both general purpose and
special registers) by clicking on the “Registers” tab (top left pane) in LXIDE.

You can inspect and modify the contents of the memory by clicking on the Memory tab (bottom
pane), adding a monitor (click on “+”) and entering the address of the memory location you
are interested in. The contents of a word in memory starting from the address you entered, as
well as the surrounding memory locations, will be shown.

To resume the program, click on the Run/Resume button with the yellow vertical bar and green
right arrow.

To stop the program completely, click on the button with the red square.
IMPORTANT: Make sure you do this before you build your program again, e.g. when you
modify your program or switch to another project. Otherwise, error messages will appear.

Familiarise yourself with the debugging features of LXIDE as described in Section 4.3.2
Controlling execution (pages 23-24) of [LUG], e.g. toggle Breakpoint, executing the program
one instruction at a time (Step Into, Step Over, Step Return), inspect peripheral registers (in
the Peripherals tab (top left pane): select the register by ticking the square on the left; a new
entry appears for this peripheral register in the Memory tab (bottom pane)) and the condition
flags (nzcvq) (in the Registers tab mentioned earlier (scroll down)), Variables tab (bottom left
pane) etc.

Part 2. LPC_1769_plainC_blinky

The task of making the red LED (LED2) on the LPCXpresso board blink can also be done
using a C program.

Make sure the program in Part 1 has stopped completely. If not, click on the button with
the red square.

Left click on the LPC1769_ plainC_blinky project in the Project Explorer (top left) pane.

Build the project and download the executable image by left clicking on “Debug
‘LPC1769_plainC_blinky’ [Debug]” in the Quickstart (bottom left) pane.

You will see various messages in the Console tab (bottom pane) as the program is compiled
and the executable image is downloaded to the LPC1769.

If you have done everything correctly, the red LED on the LPCXpresso board starts to blink
slowly.

Congratulations! You have just successfully compiled and executed your first C
program on the ARM platform!

Similar to the above, you can pause the program and inspect the registers and memory
locations, and also trace the running of the program.

You can also see the actual ARM assembly language instructions and the offsets that are
computed by the assembler and linker when you select the Disassembly view (click on the

EE2028 Lab Session 1

© CK Tham, ECE NUS 3
button with ‘i' and yellow right arrow in the Debug pane (top right corner)). A new Disassembly
pane will appear.

Food for Thought: Try selecting the Disassembly view at the end of Part 1. Why is there a
difference between the assembly language program and the disassembled code?

This concludes this lab session.

Stop any running program completely by clicking on the button with the red square.

IMPORTANT: Shut down the LXIDE application by selecting File – Exit on the menu. It
will take about 10 seconds to save and close your workspace. DO NOT remove your
USB thumbdrive until the LXIDE application has completely ended. Otherwise, you will
corrupt your project files and make them unusable.

Further Study and Homework

What was going on in the ‘blinky’ programs?

After you have completed Part 1 and Part 2 above, i.e. after the lab session, you should read
the programs carefully to familiarize yourself with the structure and format of the programs, as
well as try to understand how the program instructions caused the red LED on the LPCXpresso
board to blink slowly. These programs will be discussed in greater detail during the lectures in
Weeks 3 to 5. Assignment 1 will utilize this foundation knowledge to perform an engineering
task.

The main parts of the 2 programs with comments are shown in the Appendix to this Lab
Manual and an introductory description of what is happening will now be given.

Basically, the programs turn on and off a digital output line in the General Purpose IO (GPIO)
port 0 pin 22 that is connected to the red LED. However, the physical pin of the LPC1769 has
several functions and the GPIO functionality has to be selected by writing a ‘00’ pattern in bits
12 and 13 of the PINSEL1 register (at address 0x4002C004).

After the GPIO functionality has been selected, we need to set the direction of port 0 pin 22 to
be output by writing a bit pattern into the FIO0DIR register (at address 0x2009C000).

The state of GPIO port 0 pin 22, i.e. whether it is on/high or off/low, can be determined by
reading bit 22 of the FIO0PIN register (at address 0x2009C014).

To turn on the red LED, make the state of GPIO port 0 pin 22 on/high by writing ‘1’ to bit 22 of
the FIO0SET register (at address 0x2009C018).

To turn off the red LED, make the state of GPIO port 0 pin 22 off/low by writing ‘1’ to bit 22 of
the FIO0CLR register (at address 0x2009C01C). Note that you do not turn off the red LED by
writing ‘0’ to a bit in a register.

Finally, there is a delay loop to make the red LED stay on or off for a short duration before
switching to the other state. The whole cycle runs repeatedly.

THE END

EE2028 Lab Session 1

© CK Tham, ECE NUS 4
APPENDIX - Reference Information - these concepts will be explained
in greater detail during lectures in Weeks 3 and 4
Background: PINSEL, GPIO, LED

EE2028 1

“Blinky” Example ‐ 1
•LPC1769_asm_blinky ‐ 1
/*
* LPC1769_asm_blinky : asm.s
* CK Tham, ECE, NUS
* June 2011
*
* Configures PINSEL1 and GPIO to make LED2 on LPCXpresso board blink.
*/

@ Directives
.thumb @ (same as saying '.code 16')
.cpu cortex-m3 Directives to the GNU Assembler
.syntax unified
.align 2

@ Equates
.equ STACKINIT, 0x10080000 Address of top of stack
.equ PINSEL1, 0x4002C004
.equ FIO0DIR, 0x2009C000 Addresses of particular registers
.equ FIO0SET, 0x2009C018
.equ FIO0CLR, 0x2009C01C
.equ LEDPIN, 0x400000 @ bit 22
.equ LEDDELAY, 2000000 Specifying particular bit patterns

EE2028 2
 “Blinky” Example ‐ 2
•LPC1769_asm_blinky ‐ 2
@ Vectors
vectors:
.word STACKINIT @ stack pointer value when stack is empty
.word _start + 1 @ reset vector (manually adjust to odd for thumb)
.word _nmi_handler + 1 @
.word _hard_fault + 1 @
.word _memory_fault + 1 @ Define table for exception handlers
.word _bus_fault + 1 @
.word _usage_fault + 1 @
.word 0 @ checksum

.global _start

@ Start of executable code

.section .text

_start:
@ set the pinselect
ldr r6, =PINSEL1 Main program : Initialization
ldr r0, [r6]
and r0, 0xffffcfff
str r0, [r6]

@ and port direction

ldr r6, =FIO0DIR
mov r0, LEDPIN
str r0, [r6]

@ Load R2 with the led pin number

mov r2, LEDPIN @ value to turn on/off LED
EE2028 3

“Blinky” Example ‐ 3
•LPC1769_asm_blinky ‐ 3

:
loop:
ldr r6, =FIO0SET
str r2, [r6] @ set Port 0, pin 22, turning on LED
ldr r1, =LEDDELAY

delay1:
subs r1, 1 Main program : Body
bne delay1

ldr r6, =FIO0CLR

str r2, [r6] @ clear Port 0, pin 22, turning off LED
ldr r1, =LEDDELAY

delay2:
subs r1, 1
bne delay2

b loop @ continue forever

EE2028 4
 “Blinky” Example ‐ 4
•LPC1769_asm_blinky ‐ 4

@ Loop if any exception gets triggered

_exception:
_nmi_handler: Exception handling
(presently, loop and do nothing)
_hard_fault:
_memory_fault:
_bus_fault:
_usage_fault:
b _exception

.end

EE2028 5

C Program Example
•LPC1769_plainC_blinky (only main program is shown)
/* LPC1769_plainC_blinky
* ==========
* CK Tham, ECE, NUS, June 2011
*
* This plain C program configures GPIO Port 0 directly to make LED2 blink.
* It does not use CMSIS and Lib_MCU functions.
*/
#define LEDPIN (1 << 22)
#define FIO0DIR 0x2009C000
Register addresses and bit patterns
#define FIO0PIN 0x2009C014

int main(void) {
Read and Write from/to memory locations
volatile unsigned int i;

volatile unsigned int *p = (unsigned int *)FIO0DIR;

*p = LEDPIN;

while(1)
{
p = (unsigned int *)FIO0PIN;
if (*p & LEDPIN)
p += 2;
else
p++;
*p = LEDPIN;
for (i = 0; i < 1000000; i++);
}
return 0;
}
EE2028