Gecko SDK Suite Toolchain Support Matrix

Gecko SDK Suite versions have required toolchain versions which can be found in the release notes for the Gecko SDK.   It is important to use the same toolchain version when building your project as was used to build the libraries supplied as part of the SDK.  Also all of the testing that Silicon Labs does is performed using the toolchain versions as indicated in the matrix that follows.  Notes on installing and enabling toolchain versions follows the matrix.

Simplicity Studio 5 is only compatible with Gecko SDK Suite 3.0.0 or later versions.

Simplicity Studio 4 is only compatible with Gecko SDK Suite versions before 3.0.0.

IAR ARM Toolchain

Note: The IAR ARM Toolchain is licensed separately from IAR.  Simplicity Studio integrates with the IAR toolchain, but does not provide a license for it.

Due to limitations of the IAR supplied Eclipse plug-in, only one version of the IAR toolchain can be active inside of Simplicity Studio at a time, making it a bit of a challenge to work with multiple versions of the IAR toolchain.  But the fact that the IAR ARM toolchain being used is a workspace setting means that using multiple workspaces to manage different IAR ARM toolchain versions makes it fairly simple and the same technique can be combined with the corresponding GNU ARM Toolchain to implement the matrices shown above.  This technique is described in the “Enabling SDK and Toolchain Versions per Workspace” section of this article.

To add a particular IAR ARM Toolchain to a Simplicity Studio workspace, go to [Settings] > [Simplicity Studio] > [Toolchains].  If a different IAR ARM toolchain is enabled, select it in the Toolchain window and click [Remove…].  Then click [Add…] and browse to the root IAR folder for the desired version and click [OK].  The toolchain should be detected:

And clicking [OK] will add it to the toolchain preferences.

GNU ARM Toolchain

Installing Toolchain Versions

Simplicity Studio allows multiple version of the GNU ARM toolchain to be installed, but there is no direct link between a toolchain and an SDK, when a project is created a compatible toolchain(s) will be chosen for the project.  Also for a new Simplicity Studio installation the latest version of the GNU ARM toolchain is installed by default with options to install older toolchain versions.  But for an existing installation of Simplicity Studio the user is not prompted or otherwise notified that  a new version of the GNU ARM toolchain is available. 

Simplicity Studio 5

The user should click the Install icon or select [Help] > [Update Software] and then select [Manage installed packages]. From the [Installation Manager] select the [Toolchains] tab and install any required GNU ARM Toolchains.

Simplicity Studio 4

The user should click the Software Update icon or select [Help] > [Update Software] and then select the Package Manager.  From the Package Manager select the [Tools] tab and scroll to the bottom of the available tools  to find the Toolchains section and then install any required GNU ARM Toolchains.

Enabling SDK and Toolchain Versions per Workspace

On the Simplicity Studio SDK preferences page, a specific Gecko SDK Suite can be enabled and if the corresponding IAR and GNU ARM toolchain versions from the matrices are enabled on the toolchain preferences, the workspace will be set up correctly.  The preferences can be seen from [Settings] > [Simplicity Studio] and then [SDKs] or [Toolchains].  So for instance if a workspace is created ([File] > [Switch Workspace] > [Other]) named something like ‘v4_GSDK_2_2’ then the SDKs preferences would be set like this:

To maximize the performance of Simplicity Studio, only enable the one SDK for which this workspace is created.  If additional SDKs are enabled it will slow down software example population and several other operations as well as consume more of the computer's memory.

And the toolchains preferences like this:

Following this principle another workspace named ‘v4_GSDK_2_3’ would be created with these preferences:

And the same principle would be applied to the Gecko SDK Suite 2.5.2 with IAR ARM version 8.30.1 and GCC version 7.2.1.  This can also be applied to future Gecko SDK Suite versions.  After the workspaces are set up in this manner, then any project created will automatically use compatible Gecko SDK Suites and toolchains.

Please let us know if there are any questions about these recommendations.

Thank you,

jpitt