FreeMASTER NXP or realtime monitoring utility

[onyx22574]

Is there available real time monitoring utility aka NXP Freemaster for Zephyr?
Can be FreeMaster used under Zephyr or other utility with similar features is available?

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[DerekSnell]

Hi @onyx22574 ,

Thank you for asking about FreeMaster.

To simply view your application's static variables at runtime, FreeMaster could be used today with a Zephyr application. FreeMaster has an option where no firmware is added to the app. It can connect to the target MCU through the debug interface, like SWD on MCUs with ARM cores. It uses the app's ELF file to find all the variable locations, and can read/write those variables at runtime. This ability should run easily with any app, including with Zephyr. Although I will admit, I have not tried this myself with a Zephyr app.

However, FreeMaster also adds much more capabilites to fully leverage the tool. And many of those features require adding some firmware that executes on the target MCU to interface with FreeMaster on the host computer. FreeMaster also includes some target drivers to enable different interfaces instead of SWD. That target firmware has not yet been ported to Zephyr. NXP is discussing adding more FreeMaster support for Zephyr, however I do not have any schedule information to share today.

In the meantime, there are other real-time tools that come to mind with Zephyr support today. Segger has a great tool called SystemView, which is very helpful wtih Zephyr. For more info, NXP presented this SystemView webinar with Segger, and our friends at Golioth have a great SystemView blog. Percepio has a tool as well for trace and visualization, and has this Zephyr Tech Talk.

Best regards