Nordic Semiconductor releases nRF Connect for VS Code

     Nordic Semiconductor has announced the launch of "nRF Connect for VS Code," an nRF Connect extension that lets developers use the popular Visual Studio Code Integrated Development Environment (VS Code IDE), Develop, build, test, and deploy embedded applications based on Nordic's nRF Connect SDK software development suite. nRF Connect SDK is a development tool for building nRF53 and nRF52 series short-range wireless applications and nRF91 series low-power cellular Internet of Things solutions.

     Nordic's nRF Connect for Visual Studio Code turned VS Code into a complete IDE for developing applications on Nordic products, It also includes compiler and linker interfaces, an RTOS-aware debugger, a seamless interface and integrated serial terminal for the nRF Connect SDK, and other utility development tools.

     VS Code is a powerful yet lightweight IDE for macOS, Linux, and Windows that combines a handy source code editor with powerful development tools. It has a robust expansion ecosystem and is therefore highly scalable. Simple customization simplifies development with the IDE, and the interactive RTOS-aware debugger allows users to step through source code, view variables, examine threads, view call stacks, and execute debug commands in the console. VS Code has an intuitive and easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI) and a powerful command line interface (CLI) that combines the convenience of a GUI with the efficiency of a CLI.

     The product is available as a set of extensions to enhance product development support. These include: nRF Connect for VS Code, which contains the interface for building the system and the main extension to the nRF Connect SDK, as well as external tools such as guiconfig; 'nRF DeviceTree' provides DeviceTree language support and easy hardware overview display; Provides' nRF Kconfig 'with Kconfig language support, and' nRF Terminal 'with integrated serial terminal for UART and RTT backends.

     Based on the nRF Connect SDK and Zephyr Project's rich sample set, this extension helps users develop and simplify the design of new nRF based applications. Developers can easily customize applications and define their own circuit board products using the Zephyr rule set's simple automated wizards. The DeviceTree viewer visualizes the configured hardware to help developers navigate the DeviceTree source. Tight native integration with the nRF Connect SDK simplifies the task of migrating existing nRF Connect SDK software development suite applications to VS Code. Using Microsoft's extensions to C/C++ or other companies' extensions to Git and the like, nRF Connect for VS Code provides a comprehensive, one-stop development environment for designers using Nordic wireless solutions.

     Ingar Hanssen, product manager of nRF Connect for VS Code Technology at Nordic Semiconductor, said: "Nordic Wireless solutions eliminate as much technical complexity as possible from the design process, and the key is to provide access to a variety of easy-to-use design tools, while nRF Connect for VS Code extends the design tools available to users. By enabling the nRF Connect SDK, users can easily access the fast, cross-platform compatible popular IDE VS Code."

     "The new nRF Connect for VS Code extension is not only customizable, intuitive and flexible, but it also speeds up the development process when designing, building, testing and deploying embedded applications based on Nordic solutions."