ARM Community: ARM Cortex-M4 Struts its Stuff at Embedded World - ARM Community

The ARMv7-M architecure profile was created to address the needs of the microcontroller (MCU) market for the high-performance combined with low power and small size. To the Cortex-M0 processor, the smallest footprint MCU processor and the Cortex-M3 processor offering more capability and a richer instruction set, at last year’s Embedded World, ARM added the Cortex-M4 processor.

The Cortex-M4 processor’s strength is particularity in its DSP instructions as well as its optional VFP (floating point) optional extension making it a perfect processor for Digital Signal Control (DSC). The first silicon I saw was presented at the 20^th AETC in Paris last year and now several ARM Partners can offer you products based on the Cortex-M4 processor. Let’s see what ARM Connected Community Partners will present and where you will be able to find the demos!




The Embedded World (EW) event in Nürnberg is divided in two parts: the Exhibition which is open to all with booths and the Conference where you can listen to presentations on your favorite subjects and products.

Embedded World conference offerings
Rich of content as you can see in the table below, from the silicon to the tools, understand how to utilize the Cortex-M4 processor (Cortex-M4 Partner support) to the fullest.

• Day 1, 14.30 - 15.30: Developing industrial and low-power applications using the Cortex-M4 processor by Shyam Sadasivan, ARM
• Day 1, 09:30 - 11:00: Designing Energy-Efficient Systems with Cortex-M Microcontrollers by Reinhard Keil, ARM and Frank Grobe, Hitex Development Tools
• Day 1, 16:00 - 17:00: New Cortex-M4 Implementations by Daniel Basler, and Matthias Ackermann, Freescale
• Day 1, 17:00 - 18:00: Designing advanced DSP applications on the Kinetis Cortex-M4 MCU by Lotta Frimanson, and Anders Lundgren, IAR and Matus Plachy, Freescale
• Day 2, 09:00 - 12:30: DSP Processing with Cortex-M4 by Joachim Klein, Hitex Development Tools
• Day 2, 14:15 - 17:30: The quickest way to Wired and Wireless connectivity with Cortex-M by Jens Stapelfeldt, Guillaume Henri, Texas Instruments

ARM Partners demo Cortex-M4 at EW
If you have time between two interesting conferences or if you don’t attend the presentations you still have a lot to see on the show floor! From the ARM Connected Community flyer (ARM in Hall 10/11-343), you will be able to spot all Cortex-M4 demos available in Die Messe. This flyer will be available from ARM booth but you will soon be able to download it from the Find an ARM Partner page. Here are a few examples of what you can expect to see:

Freescale Semiconductor (Hall 9/9-935) was showing a prototype of the Tower System with Kinetis and you can now get the evaluation kit under the reference TWR-K60N512-KIT. It includes the Cortex-M4 CPU board as well as a communication card, the development software (CodeWarrior IDE) and cables... It took me about an hour to get all working and a code example running.



NXP (Hall 12/12-218) sent me a great Motor Control evaluation kit based on the LPC4300. This MCU contains an ARM Cortex-M4 processor but also a Cortex-M0 processor! What I really liked with that kit was the fact that even the motor and power supply was in the kit. Great out of the box experience from Embedded Artist. At Embedded World, NXP should show a dual motor control demo, showing different way to drive (sensor on Cortex-M4 and sensor-less with FOI algorithm on Cortex-M4)



Texas Instruments (Hall 12/12-436, Hall 11/11-308, Hall 11/11-318) gave us a great kit to start with as well. The fact that the MCU can easily be swapped makes it Cortex-M4 Ready! Thanks to CMSIS 2.0 libraries, to upgrade to the Cortex-M4 processor and use the DSP functions, the developer simply has to change a compilation switch… Another example of the ease of development and scalability of development on ARMv7-M architecture profile.

Get your board and develop!
CMSIS 2.0 allows you to make abstraction of the low level drivers. It means that your code is more easily portable between ARM Cortex-M series processors allowing you to choose the silicon vendor the most suited to your application. CMSIS libraries also include maths function along with examples on how to use them, making it easier for the non-DSP experts to make the most of the Cortex-M4 processor capabilities.

Furthermore with Keil MDK and its acclaimed µVision IDE, there is not really any barrier preventing you from starting your development.

So what will be your next application on the ARM Cortex-M4 processor? Meet us at EW2011 and let us know!
In the meantime, why not read Alan on "sexy" embedded electronics?! A guaranteed interesting read with humour.

Kindly, Alban

Alban Rampon - 冉昂理, Partnership Marketing Specialist, ARM, is an electronics engineer experienced in Automotive as well as Consumer and Industrial product design. He loves spending a lot of his time helping engineers worldwide with specialist questions in electronics and microcontrollers/networks in particular. Being a keen trainer helps Alban giving straight and understandable answers, always thriving to the highest standard of quality. Today Alban uses both his technical knowledge and customer dedication to develop and strengthen ARM Connected Community relationships. Through networking and promotion, he helps ARM Partners getting successful products to the market. You are very welcome to drop Alban an email if you have any question or wish to report inappropriate content/behaviour on the Forums/Blogs.