msp430-elf

The following are instructions for building a GCC cross-compiler for the MSP430. They are based in part on Peter Bigot's post to mspgcc-users.

Setup

export PREFIX=/usr/local/msp430
export PATH="${PREFIX}/bin:${PATH}"

Make sure $PREFIX exists, is empty, and is writable by you.

Software

binutils

Get the latest binutils (currently 2.25) and extract it.

cd binutils-2.25
./configure --prefix="${PREFIX}" --target=msp430-elf
make
make install
cd ..

gcc (host)

The latest gcc release as of this writing is 4.9.2, which doesn't check for a hardware multiplier (see patch). We're cheap (our chip doesn't have a multiplier) and lazy (we don't want to have to say -mhwmult=none all the time), so we build the latest gcc from trunk instead.

svn checkout svn://gcc.gnu.org/svn/gcc/trunk gcc-trunk

mkdir gcc-build

cd gcc-build
../gcc-trunk/configure --prefix="${PREFIX}" --target=msp430-elf \
  --with-newlib --enable-languages=c,c++
make all-host
make install-host
cd ..

newlib

Get the latest newlib (currently 2.2.0-1) and extract it.

cd newlib-2.2.0-1
./configure --prefix="${PREFIX}" --target=msp430-elf
make
make install
cd ..

gcc (target)

cd gcc-build
make all-target
make install-target
cd ..

Support files

TI provides the "support files" necessary for building code for the MSP430: headers and linker scripts. These are distributed as part of MSP430-GCC-OPENSOURCE and can be found on the download page (at least for version 3_02_03_00) as msp430-gcc-support-files.zip.

cd msp430-gcc-support-files
cp *.h "${PREFIX}/msp430-elf/include"
cp *.ld "${PREFIX}/msp430-elf/lib"
cd ..

Test

Now let's make sure it works with the customary blinkenlights. We assume that mspdebug is already installed. You may need to tweak the details for your specific chip model.

Put the following in test.c:

#include <msp430.h>

void __attribute__((interrupt(TIMERA1_VECTOR))) blink(void) {
	TACCTL1 &= ~CCIFG;

	P1OUT ^= BIT0 | BIT6;
}

void main(void) {
	WDTCTL = WDTPW | WDTHOLD;

	P1DIR |= BIT0 | BIT6;
	P1OUT ^= BIT0;

	BCSCTL3 |= LFXT1S_2;
	BCSCTL1 |= DIVA_1;

	TACCR0 = 1200;
	TACTL = TASSEL_1 | MC_1;
	TACCTL1 = CCIE | OUTMOD_3;

	__bis_SR_register(LPM3_bits | GIE);
}

Build and run it with:

msp430-elf-gcc -mmcu=msp430g2211 -specs=nosys.specs -o test.elf test.c
mspdebug rf2500 'prog test.elf'

Extras

gdb

Get the latest gdb (currently 7.9) and extract it.

cd gdb-7.9
./configure --prefix="${PREFIX}" --target=msp430-elf
make
make install
cd ..

In mspdebug, run gdb 1234. In msp430-elf-gdb, run target remote :1234.

0/msp430-elf.md