Overview

Introduction

Note

Since 0.5.0 release of Nuclei SDK, we need to use Nuclei Studio >= 2023.10 or Nuclei Toolchain >=2023.10 to build and run it, see release changelog.

The Nuclei Software Development Kit (SDK) is an open-source software platform to speed up the software development of SoCs based on Nuclei Processor Cores.

This Nuclei SDK is built based on the NMSIS, user can access all the APIs provided by NMSIS and also the APIs that provided by Nuclei SDK which mainly for on-board peripherals access such as GPIO, UART, SPI and I2C, etc.

Nuclei SDK provides a good start base for embedded developers which will help them simplify software development and improve time-to-market through well-designed software framework.

Note

To get a pdf version of this documentation, please click Nuclei SDK Document

Design and Architecture

The Nuclei SDK general design and architecture are shown in the block diagram as below.

Nuclei SDK Design and Architecture Diagram

Nuclei SDK Design and Architecture Diagram

As Nuclei SDK Design and Architecture Diagram shown, The Nuclei SDK provides the following features:

  • Nuclei Core API service is built on top of NMSIS, so silicon vendors of Nuclei processors can easily port their SoCs to Nuclei SDK, and quickly evaluate software on their SoC.

  • NMSIS-NN and NMSIS-DSP library can be also used in Nuclei SDK, and the prebuilt libraries are included in NMSIS/Library folder of Nuclei SDK.

  • Mainly support two Nuclei Processor based SoCs, Nuclei Eval SoC and GD32VF103 SoC

  • Provided realtime operation system service via FreeRTOS, UCOSII and RT-Thread

  • Provided bare-metal service for embedded system software beginners and resource-limited use-cases.

  • Currently Nuclei SDK doesn’t define any common device APIs to access GPIO/I2C/SPI/UART devices, which still relies on the device/peripheral APIs from firmware libraries provided by various silicon vendors, such as current supported GD32VF103 SoC.

  • Applications are logically separated into three parts:

    • General applications for all Nuclei Processors: In the Nuclei SDK software code, the applications provided are all general applications which can run on all Nuclei Processors, with basic UART service to provide printf function.

    • Nuclei Demo SoC applications: These applications are not included in the Nuclei SDK software code, and it is maintained separately, which will use resource from Nuclei Demo SoC and its evaluation boards to develop applications, which will not be compatible with different boards.

    • GD32VF103 SoC applications: These applications are not included in the Nuclei SDK software code, and it is maintained separately, which will use resource from GD32VF103 SoC and its evaluation boards to develop applications, which will not be compatible with different boards.

Get Started

Please refer to Quick Startup to get started to take a try with Nuclei SDK.

Contributing

Contributing to Nuclei SDK is welcomed, if you have any issue or pull request want to open, you can take a look at Contributing section.

License

Nuclei SDK is an opensource project licensed by Apache License 2.0.