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I am not able to use the simulator when I select one of the 200 series STM32 devices, the STM32f205ZC specifically. There are no errors, but the instruction pointer just sits at address 0x00000000, and no program is loaded.
A call to US Tech Support yielded the position that there is no support for simulation and none planned for the 200 series devices because they are too complex.
Are other people out there disappointed by this?
Wow, you all are a tough crowd - I feel like this got really combative way too quickly.
Just to provide a little context, there is no absolute marketing material that promises anything, and to an earlier point, of course you have to be an "intelligent buyer", but I believe Keil would like you to believe that they are supporting all of these ARM devices. Look at their website . . . http://www.keil.com/arm/mdk.asp "Complete support for Cortex-M, Cortex-R4, ARM7, and ARM9 devices" "µVision4 IDE, debugger, and simulation environment" http://www.keil.com/uvision/db_sim.asp "The µVision Simulator allows you to debug programs using only your PC and device simulation drivers provided by Keil and various third-party developers. A good simulation environment, like µVision, does much more than simply simulate the instruction set of a microcontroller — it simulates your entire target system including interrupts, startup code, on-chip peripherals, external signals, and I/O."
It's pretty clear that Hans, Ashley, and Andrew think I'm being unreasonable for hoping for the same support of new devices offered on previous, similar devices when we purchased the tool, and I understand that Erik doesn't value simulation very much. Are there any other opinions?
Anyway, my original question stands, is anyone disappointed that simulation isn't available for new devices? The word from Keil is that they are not planning on adding this. I was hoping others out there would join me in requesting this functionality in the future. Maybe they would like to spin off the simulation feature to an open source project if they aren't interested in continued development?
I guess the question to ask before that would be, "how many people make extensive use of the deevice-specific peripheral simulation?"
In the particular case of ST, there has been a fair amount of disappointment expressed on their forum of their own lack of support for their own new devices - so I guess it's not surprising that 3rd parties like Keil have trouble keeping up...
With the rate new devices are appearing, it must be really hard for Keil to keep up.
They can't (or won't) even keep up with the parametric database: http://www.keil.com/forum/17710/
"there has been a fair amount of disappointment expressed on their forum of their own lack of support for their own new devices "
that's to be expected of any new devices.
however, I do agree that they could have done a better job at preparing the software side of the things before they release their hardware.
"They can't (or won't) even keep up with the parametric database:"
it seems to be fairly recent: it pulled up st32l15x parts.
but i have to admit that it is the first time that i have used it. don't people pretty much know what their target(s) are before they start coding?
Sorry - I meant the parametric database search
"don't people pretty much know what their target(s) are before they start coding?"
The parametric search was useful in selecting a chip - so that could very well be used before coding.