How to get a custom board to show up as a target for 'Hardware Boards' in MATLAB Coder

When generating code with MATLAB embedded coder there is no selection for my target ARM processor: Cortex M7

How do I add my board ARM Cortex-M7?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

The 'Hardware Board' option is a list of the currently created hardware configuration objects. If your board does not appear on that list but is directly supported by a support package you can still generate code for it. To read more about the 'Hardware Board' list please refer to the following documentation:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/coder/ref/coder.hardware.html

Method 1: Generic Hardware

One method is to specify your board as a generic ARM Cortex-M board. When on the 'Generate Code' screen select 'None - Select Device below' for the 'Hardware Board' option. Then you can select the 'ARM Compatible' device vendor and the 'ARM Cortex-M' device type. 

This method will allow you to generate code for your board.

Method 2: Custom Target

However, you will have to use another method if you want to associate additional data with your target. For example, if you want to add automated build, PIL or external mode support for their target, you would have to do that through a board definition. Please refer to the following documentation for examples of how to add that additional data to a board definition:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/rtw/ref/target.board-class.html

To get your board to show up as a 'Hardware Board' and to create a board definition, you would need to create a 'target.Board' description and then add it to the internal database using 'target.Add'. You may also associate a custom processor to this board as well. Please refer to the following documentation for more details:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/coder/ug/register-new-hardware-devices.html#mw_7fc6f3e3-f14b-4db8-9c60-9bc75408f967

Below is a minimal example of the workflow:

myProc = target.create('Processor', ...
                       'Name', 'My ARM Cortex-M7', ...
                       'Manufacturer', 'ARM');

Specify the new custom processor for the board.

myCopiedImplementation = target.create('LanguageImplementation', ...
                                       'Name', 'My Arm Copy', ...
                                       'Copy', 'ARM Compatible-ARM Cortex');

Create a Language Implementation object by copying values from the existing ARM Cortex Object

% Customizations for ARM Cortex M-7
myProc.LanguageImplementations = myCopiedImplementation;

Assign the Language Implementation to the processor

hostTarget = target.create('Board', 'Name', 'ARM Cortex-M7');
hostTarget.Processors = myProc;

objectsAdded = target.add(hostTarget);

Create the new board and assign the processor we created. Then add the object to the internal database so it shows up in the 'Hardware Board' dropdown.

Then you are able to select your custom board: