Renesas Rulz

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458 Views 9 Replies Last post: Mar 5, 2010 12:51 AM by FrankL

Leeds

3 posts since
Feb 17, 2010

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Feb 17, 2010 1:26 PM

I take it the 6 RTA-FoUSB-MON's I have need to be thrown out now?

I have recently gotten a new computer here at work. It's a fairly nice Dell with Win7 64-bit enterprise on it. Absolutely *everything* I have installed on it works perfectly, even the oldest dongles, drivers, applications, etc. Everything, that is, except the FoUSB.

The install application says it's installed the drivers for the the FoUSB and that everything went well but when I plug any of them in I get the whole"driver can't be found" runaround.

I realize that the FoUSB is not a new device but we do have 6 of them since we develop on the M32C for about 11 active projects. Am I to assume that I have to run a virtual machine to make use of these tools now? That sounds like an absolute nightmare to me. Especially since this is a daily use bread-n-butter kind of work for me, not just some occational bugfixes.

I suppose the answer I'll get on this board is to buy a bunch of the E8a's?

And no, my desktop's processor is damn kickass but it doesn't have hardware virtualization built in, so it really does have to be a vmware image running on this thing from what I understand.

Any words of encouragement? If I buy the E8a will I be able to use the kd3083 jtag program as well as the FoUSB program (or their newer equivalents of course), or do I have to buy new software too? Does the E8a work perfectly in Win7-64?

Since the FoUSB is an older product and clearly not one they care to support any more, is there any chance they'd allow me to download their original development environment so that I could try to write my own 64bit drivers?

I may be the first m32c firmware guy at my company to jump feet-first into Win7-64 but I won't be the last. It would be a shame to toss out these devices just because they won't play nicely with modern computers...

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance. :-)

Leeds

3 posts since
Feb 17, 2010

Currently Being Moderated

Feb 17, 2010 1:58 PM

in response to: Leeds

Re: I take it the 6 RTA-FoUSB-MON's I have need to be thrown out now?

I've just been reading up about the E8a- Is it true that it can't be used on a modern computer either???

According to the "tool news" posts, win-7-64 compatibility won't be rolled out for the E8a software packages until 2011!!!!! Does that mean no drivers until then either?

Am I reading something wrong here? I can't believe that Renesas is that far behind the 8-ball, are they?

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FrankL

1,123 posts since
Mar 16, 2009

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Feb 18, 2010 3:34 AM

in response to: Leeds

Re: I take it the 6 RTA-FoUSB-MON's I have need to be thrown out now?

You won't have any luck with FoUSB, and I doubt you will be able to get your hands on the software for it.

About E8a, a beta-version of an USB driver for Win 7-64 will be released end of this week or beginning of next week on the Renesas homepage.This will support all actual emulators like E8a, 10A, E100, E10A, E1, E20, ...

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gbm

66 posts since
Jan 15, 2009

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Feb 18, 2010 4:04 AM

in response to: FrankL

Re: I take it the 6 RTA-FoUSB-MON's I have need to be thrown out now?

How about E8? We use 12 of them, and we don't even own a single E8a. Functionally they are equivalent to E8a, case being the main difference. We would like to migrate to Win7 x64 asap but without E8 support it is not possible. Any chance to get E8 working under Win7 x64?

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FrankL

1,123 posts since
Mar 16, 2009

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Feb 18, 2010 4:25 AM

in response to: gbm

Re: I take it the 6 RTA-FoUSB-MON's I have need to be thrown out now?

No real idea yet. Usually all Exx emulators use the same USB driver. But I don't know if Win 7 will recognise that E8 can use the new driver.

And the main difference between E8 and E8a is that E8a supports lower voltage in the target than E8.

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ckgrier

857 posts since
Mar 16, 2009

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Feb 21, 2010 7:02 PM

in response to: gbm

Re: I take it the 6 RTA-FoUSB-MON's I have need to be thrown out now?

You should buy a new E8A to use with any new Win7 machines. Cost is very low, and you can still use the E8 or FoUSB on any installed computer systems. The new drivers might work with the E8, but I don't think that will be a published feature.

This happens often with SW and Microsoft Windows when they update the OS. Sometimes it happens with Service Packs too. (It happened with a Linksys Wifi card recently)

SW like FoUSB was free, and the SW that replaces it is also free. You'll want FDT, it has many nice features.

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gbm

66 posts since
Jan 15, 2009

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Feb 20, 2010 3:29 AM

in response to: ckgrier

Re: I take it the 6 RTA-FoUSB-MON's I have need to be thrown out now?

Thanks for the response which finally convinced me ta abandon Renesas R8C family for any future products.

Besides being a developer, I am also an instructor with some influence on the engineers I train. Renesas policy of abandoning software support for relatively new products is outstanding. I did not encounter this problem with other companies, Atmel and TI being the first examples that came to my mind. I like R8C chips but not their incomplete documentation and delayed or non-existent software drivers.

Considering the similarity between E8 and E8a, lack of software support for E8 looks like an arbitrary marketing decision without any technical merrit. I don't want to be forced to buy E8b in 2012 when the next OS version arrives, so I would rather use NXP new LPC11xx and LPC13xx families with significantly lower prices and better performance than R8C. Pity they don't have 5 Volt I/O as most of my designs require MOSFET gate control, usually at 4 Volts.

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ckgrier

857 posts since
Mar 16, 2009

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Feb 21, 2010 7:23 PM

in response to: gbm

Re: I take it the 6 RTA-FoUSB-MON's I have need to be thrown out now?

To be accurate, TI, NXP and Atmel don't make any emulators (or compilers) for ARM Cortex chips - you're actually buying OEM'ed Segger debuggers. Even IAR uses their pods. I just checked Digikey and they have the IAR version for sale for about twice the price of the E8A. That means you could buy two E8As or one E8 and one E8a for the price of a JLINK. Same comparison holds for the Atmel JTAGICE mkII - which Atmel does make. If you are buying tools for a lab, you can buy twice as many debugging interfaces when you use Renesas.

I understand that suppliers have good points and bad points, but considering that a full Renesas compiler is MUCH less than comparable IAR or Keil compilers - it seems like from a $$ perspective it shouldn't be cause to abandon a MCU product you've developed with in the past. Drivers can be frustrating, but your issue seems to have a straightforward fix. You might also contact someone at Renesas and see if they can help.

Lastly, the E8A does support more debugging features than the E8, so newer chips (like R8C/3x) become better development targets with the E8A.

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Leeds

3 posts since
Feb 17, 2010

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Mar 4, 2010 9:44 AM

in response to: FrankL

Re: I take it the 6 RTA-FoUSB-MON's I have need to be thrown out now?

FrankL-

Your proposed timeframe has come and gone and I still don't see the drivers you stated would be released.

I am really, really, really in a pinch here so I have to ask- Are you even officially affiliated with Renesas? If so, has this crucial update slipped or is it not even coming out?

I'm *happy* to toss out all 6 of the damn Fo-USB's since you guys have decided not to support them, but I'll be damned if I'm going to be conned into buying more pods (the E8a) only to find that they are also not supported in modern computers. So far that is the case.

I don't mean to be a pain in the *** but this is my livelyhood were talking about here. As I'm sure you can imagine, this is begining to become a real black eye for renesas and if they won't support their chips/pods I will have to start the process of making up gaant charts to determine how long it will take to replace the processors on our boards with something that is being supported by the mfg.

-Leeds

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FrankL

1,123 posts since
Mar 16, 2009

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Mar 5, 2010 12:51 AM

in response to: Leeds

Re: I take it the 6 RTA-FoUSB-MON's I have need to be thrown out now?

It has been delayed by a week, but it is online since February 16th.

http://tool-support.renesas.com/eng/toolnews/100216/tn1.htm

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