ARM Community: Embedded World 2013 Microcontroller Review - ARM Community

Embedded World 2013 in Nuremberg was a very successful event for ARM and our partners. My blog summarizes the highlights for microcontrollers and the related development tools.

A preview of the upcoming Keil MDK-ARM Version 5 was shown at the ARM booth. MDK Version 5 will introduce Software Packs, a new system to manage software components for embedded applications. Visitors have seen this new functionality, as well as the recently introduced enhanced editor capabilities.



A laser show controlled by an ARM Cortex-M4 based hardware was an eyecatcher at the ARM booth. The system is designed with several MDK Professional middleware components and visitors could get an in-depth insight into the software with the extensive analysis data provided by the debug and trace features of ULINKpro.



The new MATLAB/Simulink integration into MDK-ARM triggered a lot of interest. This joint project between ST and ARM is fully supported by MathWorks and enables software developers to create their algorithms in MATLAB and Simulink and then target, integrate, debug and test those models in a Processor In the Loop (PIL) simulation on actual hardware.




Our partners STMicroelectronics and IS2T joined forces to bring Java to embedded systems using the STM32 family of MCUs. ST also had news to share about their ultra low power devices and the extension of the STM32 F4 portfolio with parts with up to 2 MB Flash memory.




Freescale announced the launch of the world's smallest MCU, putting an ARM Cortex-M0+ core in a package smaller than 4 mm^2 with their new Kinetis KL02 ultra-low power microcontroller series.




Infineon showed their ARM Cortex-M4 based XMC4000 family and the latest addition to their ARM-based product portfolio, the XMC1000 family. The XMC1000 combines a low power ARM Cortex-M0 processor with industrial peripherals for low-cost applications.




Atmel introduced the new XPlained Pro Kits, a low-cost evaluation platform for the Atmel SAM4L family with integrated USB debugging capability based on the new CMSIS-DAP standard.




Oracle gave an update on their strategy for using Java on ARM-based devices, from data center applications to embedded microcontrollers. The Java implementation has been created using Keil MDK-ARM and the MCBSTM32F400 development board.




I would also like to take a look back at some of the highlights from last year's Embedded World exhibition:

STMicroelectronics discusses the STM32 ecosystem and describes how they are using Keil MDK-ARM for application development and customer trainings. [VIDEO]

Willert Software present their UML design tools for MCUs and how they can be used for high-level designs of embedded applications.[VIDEO]

Updates from Segger on their emWin Graphics Library enabling graphical user interfaces on embedded systems of any size. [VIDEO]

Introduction to CMSIS-RTOS, the standard API for real-time operating systems running on ARM Cortex-M based MCUs.[VIDEO]

All in all, many intriguing new products and initiatives were introduced at Embedded World 2013. I'm looking forward to see what will come of it in the coming months.

Johannes Bauer, MCU Tools Product Manager, ARM, has held several Support and Marketing positions before joining ARM in 2011. He is based in Munich and is the Product Manager for ARM Microcontroller Development tools, including Keil MDK-ARM and the ULINK debug probes.