Looking for ARM M3 platform for an application

Electronics
1

Hey guys, I know I’ve been out of the loop for a while, but things have been busy with setting up my new business! (professional engineering services)

I’m working on a project that could use an ARM M3 or similar platform, I’ll probably try starting out with FreeRTOS.

There’s some motor control, but I think I have that handled with other chips mostly. The only hard and fast requirements are 32k+ of FLASH and maybe 4-8k RAM, and a fairly flexible UART and SPI ports.

Looking to use GCC+GDB and a simple JTAG debugger if I can.

I know there’s a lot of expertise hanging out around here, and if you use something like this you like, or you work on a product like this in real life (and think it’s good!) I’d like to hear about it.

I’ve been poking around at TI, Atmel, ST, and Cypress, so it’s kinda wide open at this point! I am familiar with this stuff, I just haven’t used any of it specifically…

Thanks in advance!

1 Like
2

I’ll describe my setup, though it is extremely Spartan.

I like STM32F microcontrollers. They come in all ARM flavors, one in particular that is in the M3 line is the STM32F103C8. You can get very cheap dev boards for these:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/48-pin-ARM-Cortex-M3-STM32F103C8T6-Minimum-System-Development-Board-STM32/32265943754.html

And for programming / debugging, a generic JTAG adapter such as this:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/ARM-Emulator-supports-ARM7-ARM9-ARM11-Cortex-M3-core-ADS-IAR-STM32-JTAG-interface-Double-buffered/32262562435.html

For programming, I use vim to edit the c code. I have a custom-crafted makefile + arm-none-eabi toolchain installed on Linux. Also, openocd + gdb for debugging & programming. If you’re interested, I can share my makefiles & related scripts.

1 Like
3

Thanks! Not having to sit around figuring out the toolchain would be an amazing boost.

4

The big thing is to actually get the cross-compiling toolchain installed. It can be tricky in some distros. I’m using ArchLinux, and they helpfully have that toolchain in their repos:

https://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/arm-none-eabi-gcc/

You can compile it yourself, and there are (so I’ve heard) free precompiled toolchains from Code Sourcery. I’ve never used those, however, so you’d be on your own there.

Then it’s just a matter of downloading the libraries for the specific chip from ST’s website and customizing a makefile for it.

1 Like
5

The Teensy 3.1 might work for you, I picked one up for $15, it has a ton of I/O and impressive specs because it’s using a Cortex-M4.

2 Likes
6

That does seem to be quite functional. It uses a Freescale part with The Kitchen Sink package of peripherals. A little over-capable for my application, but definitely a good way to prototype. Thanks!

1 Like