J-Link Renesas RX support

J-Link is compatible to the Renesas RX600 series MCUs. All that is needed to use J-Link with a Renesas RX600 series MCU, is an RX Adapter which is available for J-Link, J-Link Pro, J-Link Ultra, J-Link EDU and any other licensed J-Link compatible emulator. The required software can be downloaded from SEGGER's website and used free of charge.

Features

Supports direct download into flash memory
Supports software breakpoints in flash memory (Flash breakpoints)
Seamless integration into the Renesas HEW & IAR Embedded Workbench IDE
On-chip trace support
Virtual UART support (C2E / E2C support)
All kinds of events are supported (Execution break, data access, trace break, combintation/sequentation of events
20-pin to standard 14-pin Renesas JTAG connector
USB 2.0 interface
JTAG speed up to 12 MHz / 25 MHz (depending on J-Link model)
No power supply required, powered through USB
All JTAG signals can be monitored
target voltage can be measured
Support for multiple devices
Fully plug and play compatible
Wide target voltage range: 1.2V - 5V
TCP/IP server included, which allows using J-Link via TCP/IP networks
Target power supply: J-Link can supply up to 300 mA to target with overload protection

J-Link RX software package
J-Link vs. E1
Available RX hardware
Compatible MCUs
Getting started
Supported IDEs
Production programming
Flash prgramming via J-Link Commander

J-Link RX software package

The J-Link RX software is a separate software package to use J-Link in Renesas HEW and IAR EWRX. The package comes comes with additional DLLs. These DLLs are not part of the standard software and documentation package for J-Link.

J-Link RX software download (V4.38a)

Subscribe to J-Link RX software notification

Beta software

We frequently publish new Beta versions. The Beta versions follow our current development version very closely and contain the latest features and improvements. However, the Beta versions are not thoroughly tested, but it is usually safe to assume that the Beta version can be used without risk:

J-Link RX beta software download (V4.41g)

Subscribe to J-Link RX beta software notification

J-Link vs. Renesas E1. What are the advantages of J-Link ?

Higher speed
First of all, J-Link is much faster. We achive (at the time of writing, using the current versions of both the J-Link and E1 software) a speed of approximately 2-6 times the speed of the E1.
This is true for basically all operations, incl. download to flash, setting of breakpoints in flash as well as startup and typical debugging operations like single stepping or memory read operations.
Smart breakpoint management
Flash breakpoints are much faster on J-Link than on E1 or E20, but because of the large flash sectors of up to 128KB, setting or removing flash breakpoints is still time consuming.
J-Link uses different techniques to minimize the amount of times a flash breakpoint is set or removed. Some of these techniques are: Instruction set simulation, use of hardware breakpoints where possible, dynamic conversion of breakpoint types, flash caching, CRC checking and others
SDK available
You can write your own application and control an RX600 series MCU using J-Link
Same probe for ARM and RX600 CPUs: No need to switch emulators!
Control panel allows monitoring of operation
64-bit OS supported
J-Link commander: Free Command line utility for J-Link
J-Flash: Allows using J-Link for production purposes

Available J-Link RX hardware

RX adapter

All that is needed to use J-Link with a Renesas RX600 series MCU, is a regular J-Link + the 20-pin to 14-pin RX adapter.

Compatible MCUs

J-Link RX support supports all RX-CPUs with RX600 core and JTAG interface. The following devices / device groups are supported:

RX610 Group
RX621 Group
RX62T Group
RX62N Group
RX631 Group
RX63N Group

Getting started

J-Link is fully compatible to the Renesas E1 emulator and works with Renesas HEW and IAR Embedded Workbench for RX (EWRX). In order to get get J-Link up and running with Renesas HEW / IAR EWRX, a separate software package is necessary which comes with additional DLLs. These DLLs are not part of the standard software and documentation package for J-Link. In the following, the setup for preparing HEW / EWRX for J-Link is described.

If J-Link shall be used in IAR EWARM, steps 2-3 can be skipped.
If J-Link is used in HEW for the first time, some additional setup steps are required to make J-Link available in the list of selectable debuggers in HEW. This is especially necessary in older HEW installations which by default only have E1/E20 available.
Download and run the J-Link HEW registration installer, created, provided and maintained by Renesas, first: HEW J-Link registration installer
The installer will register J-Link in HEW and makes it available in the list of selectable debuggers.
Download and install the latest J-Link RX software package: J-Link RX software package
After the installer has been run, the DLL updater will open and show which installations of HEW and EWRX have been found and can be updated.
Update the HEW / EWRX installations
Done.

Supported IDEs

Since J-Link is fully compatible to the Renesas E1 emulator, all features supported by the IDE + E1 can also be used with J-Link. J-Link has been tested with the following IDEs:

Renesas HEW
IAR EWRX

J-Flash / Flasher RX support

The built-in Flash loader can be used to program the flash of supported RX devices directly from within the debugger or via J-Link commander. This allows using J-Link for flash programming of smaller production batches. To program the flash via J-Link Commander, a sequence of commands such as the following can be used:

speed 12000                       // Select High JTAG speed
h                                 // Halt target CPU
exec device=RX600                 // Select correct device (RX600, RX62N, RX62T) to enable flash programming
loadbin C:\file.bin,0xFFF80000    // Load program into flash
r                                 // Reset target CPU (not required if all you want to do is program flash)
g                                 // Start target CPU (not required if all you want to do is program flash)
q                                 // Quit

The command can be stored in a script file, which can be executed as follows: JLink.exe