ARM RealView Microcontroller Kit Supports New STMicroelectronics STM32 Families

June 22, 2007 -- ARM today announced immediate support in the RealView® Microcontroller Development Kit for the new STMicroelectronics STM32F1xx family of devices based on the ARM® Cortex™-M3 processor.

The STM32F101 (Access line) and STM32F103 (Performance line) are the first families of devices to be introduced by STMicroelectronics based on the ARM Cortex-M3 processor. The family achieves an exceptional combination of high performance and low power, offering power consumption as low as 2µA in Standby. The full family includes devices with up to 72MHz CPU clock speed, 128Kbyte on-chip Flash ROM, and 20Kbyte on-chip RAM, together with an extensive range of peripherals including A/D, CAN, USB, SPI, I2C and up to 80 GPIO.

The new devices are supported in the RealView Microcontroller Development Kit version 3.1. This latest version retains the easy-to-use characteristics of the Keil™ µVision®3 integrated development environment and introduces new features specifically optimized for single-chip, high-performance devices such as the STM32F1xx.

The RealView Microcontroller Development Kit 3.1 enables developers to make better use of their hardware resources and verify applications more efficiently, by delivering significant code size savings, new source code and new debug analysis tools.

Code Density Improvements

To further improve code density for the range of ARM processor-based devices, the kit features a new optional microlib C library (a subset of the ISO standard C run-time library), which has been minimized in size for microcontroller applications. The microlib C library achieves an amazing 92 percent reduction in run-time library code size, making it ideal for resource-limited, single-chip MCU devices.

“The RealView Microcontroller Development Kit offers users a fast, reliable and easy-to-use environment,” said D. Jugnon, development tools manager, Microcontroller Division, STMicroelectronics. “Now with the microlib C library, it is an ideal software tool to use with our new STM32F devices, helping to reduce memory requirements and increase performance.”

New Analysis Tools

The RealView Microcontroller Development Kit 3.1 introduces an enhanced source code browser function, enabling developers to easily check variable and function definitions, and to quickly find all uses of these variables and functions throughout the source code.

A new feature has been added to help optimize systems based on the Real-Time Operating System, RTX, which ships as standard with the Microcontroller Development Kit. The RTX event viewer visually displays all active events, together with timing information. This is especially useful when verifying and optimizing applications.

“With the significant improvements to features and performance, RealView Microcontroller Development Kit sets the benchmark for developing applications on Cortex-M3 processor-based MCUs,” said John Cornish, vice president of marketing for the Systems Design Division at ARM.

Availability

The RealView Microcontroller Development Kit v3.1 is available immediately from ARM, Keil, an ARM company, and authorized distributors listed at http://www.keil.com/distis. In addition, existing customers with valid software maintenance agreements for the MDK-ARM can download an update from: http://www.keil.com/update/sw/rvmdk/3.10

About ARM

ARM designs the technology that lies at the heart of advanced digital products, from wireless, networking and consumer entertainment solutions to imaging, automotive, security and storage devices. ARM’s comprehensive product offering includes 16/32-bit RISC microprocessors, data engines, graphics processors, digital libraries, embedded memories, peripherals, software and development tools, as well as analog functions and high-speed connectivity products. Combined with the company’s broad Partner community, they provide a total system solution that offers a fast, reliable path to market for leading electronics companies. More information on ARM is available at http://www.arm.com.