[ARM] Want to work with ARM controllers ....from where i start ???

[drbizzarow]

HI,
I want to learn ARM controller, their are several info on different Websites but i am little bit confuse, i don't know where to start, Like...

1. What are famous compilers form ARM ??which compiler is better (also free)???
2.like different company make different ARM controllers??? is code for one company ARM controller will also run on other company ARM controller ???

I really appreciate any one expert opinion and related links etc.

 

[Raady Here]

1. start with lpc 2149, its pretty used MC for starter! you can refer to the data sheet of the MC. you can practice using protues !
2. there wont be same number of a mc when manufactured by different companies.

 

[btbass]

A good place to start is with the ST Discovery development boards. They are very cheap for what you get, the Arm Cortex processors. They also have an on board programmer and debugger.

http://www.st.com/web/catalog/tools/FM116/SC959/SS1532/LN1848/PF252419

For a very good free IDE look at Em Blocks

http://www.emblocks.org/web/

Includes all the tools you need for compiling and debugging.

 

[drbizzarow]

thx for the post...
what is the difference bw NXP nd LPC ???

 

[andre_luis]

Both are based on licensed same core architecture developed by ARM corporation, and major differences concerns mostly for pinout and built in dedicated peripherals.



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[btbass]

A lot of companies make Arm processors, NXP being one.
The 32-bit Arm Cortex M0 - M4 processors are very fast (168MHz) with large memories, great peripheral support and compete cost wise with 8-bit micros.

What you got to look for is ease of use and support.

ST do a large range of Arm Cortex based chips and provide good software support with their peripheral driver libraries.

They supply a wide range of cheap (£6 to £12), powerful development boards with onboard ST-Link programmer debugger. Plus they have free support tools, such as 'STM32CubeMX'.

Em Blocks has great STM32F support, when you create a project, it auto links in all the required suppport files.

There are obviously other choises, but for me, the STM32F range is the easiest to get started with that I have found.

 

[xpress_embedo]

From my suggestion buy a development board a debugger and then start doing things.
Choose from stm32 discovery boards or development board based on nxp lpc series micro-controllers.

For debugging purpose buy a colinkex its a open source programmer for arm cortex series and apart from that it is really very cheap (i bought one from element14 at just 33$)
But make sure that the development board you are going to buy support this debugger as this debugger doesnt support all micro-controllers.
To be on safer side buy stm32 development board as huge number of controllers are supported.

Coming to ide and compiler.
Keil with mdk is best
Keil with gnu c compiler for arm
IAR Workbench
CooCox IDE with gnu c compiler ( this is backed by elemeng14)

Each of the ide's are similar so dont worry and just get started.
My preference goes to keil with mdk but its not free but in lite mode you can compile and debug code upto 32k
Apary from this keil is having very good simulator where you can try almost everything without any real hardware.

 

[FvM]

what is the difference bw NXP nd LPC

LPCxxxx is the partcode of NXP ARM processors.

 

[drbizzarow]

LPCxxxx is the partcode of NXP ARM processors.

oh ic!!!, thx btw.

 

[drbizzarow]

thank you all for the input.

 

[aytacdilek]

I prefer ST arm32 microcontroller development boards. It is cheap and there are very nice mems sensors on it. And the most important thing for ST family is that you can use st-link to flash and debug which is on board and you do not have to pay a lot of money for an external icd. You can download firmware library in product info webpage. It is a good starting point to use firmware library.
I use Coocox ide and gnu-arm. Everything works fine

 

[embpic]

i as per my opinion LPC2148 controller and Keil u vision are the basic and easy to start and learn the ARM coding..

 

[joeyla]

I would agree with the suggestion to try ST Discovery boards, especially those include STM32F2 or STM32F4 devices. ST have a configurator tool, STM32CubeMX which makes pin and peripheral and clock configuration a doddle, especially for beginners. Also there is a good lot of example projects online.

 

[drbizzarow]

thx to all for their reply .