There seems to be a wealth of knowledge and opensource/free tools for STM8 development, but most roads I started down to play with the STM32 without shelling out a non-trivial amount of cash are leading to a dead-end or 30 day trial.
Can anyone recommend anything?
Getting Started with 32 Bit
Started by ByteMaster, Jul 18 2012 10:06 PM
8 replies to this topic
#1
ByteMaster
-
- Members
-
- 76 posts
Advanced Member
Posted 18 July 2012 - 10:06 PM
Kevin D. Wolf
Windows Phone Development MVP
President Software Logistics, LLC
Tampa, FL
Windows Phone Development MVP
President Software Logistics, LLC
Tampa, FL
#2
hanzibal
-
- Members
-
- 1287 posts
Advanced Member
- LocationSweden
Posted 18 July 2012 - 10:13 PM
Have a look at the STM32F4Discovery board which is incredibly cheap priced at some 18 USD. These cards can be programmed using the free version of Atollic TrueStudio. I think I wrote about some of my experiences with FreeRTOS compiled using this setup in this thread:There seems to be a wealth of knowledge and opensource/free tools for STM8 development, but most roads I started down to play with the STM32 without shelling out a non-trivial amount of cash are leading to a dead-end or 30 day trial.
http://forums.netdui...dpost__p__25006
EDIT: Btw, it's the same controller used on the Go! boards. It's very fast, got lots of ram and flash and the discovery eval board has some extra features such as an accelerometer, USB OTG, a little D-amp and more. In conclusion, I don't think you can get more bang for the buck right now
#3
Nevyn
-
- Members
-
- 1072 posts
Advanced Member
- LocationNorth Yorkshire, UK
Posted 19 July 2012 - 06:38 AM
Any chance of some links - I found the tools OK but knowledge is lacking. Even Google is not too helpful.There seems to be a wealth of knowledge and opensource/free tools for STM8 development,
Have a look at the Atollic tools. They have a free version of their compiler but version 3.x is limited to the code size it will generate (32K but only 8K on Cortex-M0). However, if you can find version 2.x it is unlimited in terms of code size but has limited features instead. One limitation of 2.6 that I am aware of is that it will only allow one breakpoint to be set.but most roads I started down to play with the STM32 without shelling out a non-trivial amount of cash are leading to a dead-end or 30 day trial.
Can anyone recommend anything?
Regards,
Mark
To be or not to be = 0xFF
Blogging about Netduino, .NET, STM8S and STM32 and generally waffling on about life
Follow @nevynuk on Twitter
#4
CW2
-
- Members
-
- 1592 posts
Advanced Member
- LocationCzech Republic
Posted 19 July 2012 - 07:12 AM
For playing there is IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM 32 KB KickStart Edition - it is rather usable, ST sample packages usually contain EWARM project workspaces. There are also good references for CrossWorks for ARM (uses GCC), but the Personal License ($150) does not allow commercial use. Also, I think most of GCC-based toolchains can be integrated into IDE such as Eclipse...Can anyone recommend anything?
#5
neslekkim
-
- Members
-
- 350 posts
Advanced Member
- LocationOslo, Norway
Posted 19 July 2012 - 07:32 AM
What do you need to build the various versions of netmf out there?, when choosing toolchain, should one look at what you need to build netmf, or just start with what looks best for you?
I haven't tried any yet, but have read a little bit, and it seems that you need the expensive ones?, or can we use freebies?
--
Asbjørn
#6
nakchak
-
- Members
-
- 404 posts
Advanced Member
- LocationBristol, UK
Posted 19 July 2012 - 08:48 AM
What do you need to build the various versions of netmf out there?, when choosing toolchain, should one look at what you need to build netmf, or just start with what looks best for you?
I haven't tried any yet, but have read a little bit, and it seems that you need the expensive ones?, or can we use freebies?
AFAIK GCC's compiled output lacks a lot of the optimisations that the ARM Compiler (used in RVDS and Keil MDK) has, so the resultant binaries are to large for the ND and ND+. However with the increased headroom on the GO GCC's output can be used. CW2 has started a project for GCC compilable GO firmwares. Cross Works is a pretty nice IDE and for a personal license costs 90% less than most of the alternatives out their (MDK/RVDS costs in the multiples of thousands).
I have contacted Rowley Associates regarding the personal license for crossworks for GO module development and i will include the response below (the text in blue is their response), however I would contact them before you make a purchase to make sure the repose you get is the same as it was for me:
Hi
I am considering purchasing a personal license for crossworks. I am a little confused to your terms, I plan to create some open source hardware and software and plan to sell the project at cost price i.e. only charge for the cost of the components, PCB fabrication and Shipping so essentially a non profit project, all support will be via a public forum does that still fall under the terms of your personal license?
That’s a hard one. Whilst not exactly what we intended, it does no harm, so you have our blessing. However, if you are doing open source software, it might be cleaner for you to use an open source compiler (ARM, YAGARTO, or something else) which avoids any nasty surprises from customers. If you give your source away, that is absolutely OK with us.
Nak.
#7
neslekkim
-
- Members
-
- 350 posts
Advanced Member
- LocationOslo, Norway
Posted 19 July 2012 - 09:25 AM
ok, so the better option in the long run, would be that GCC got better arm optimizations?, one should think that lot of people would need that due to all usage of arm's around, like raspberry and such.
$150 for crossworks isn't that expensive, but one also needs compilers for stm8, and it adds up.
--
Asbjørn
#8
Geancarlo2
-
- Members
-
- 70 posts
Advanced Member
Posted 19 July 2012 - 06:41 PM
Some time ago I set up an ARM toolchain for windows using Eclipse + GCC ARM + Attolic GDB Server. I don't know if there's any legal issue with the use of Attolic's GDB.
some resources:
https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded
http://www.chibios.o...ibios:documents
STM8...Raisonance's Lite version has an output of up to 32KB and I couldn't find anything prohibiting commercial usage. Also, 64KB+ stm8 microcontrollers are more expensive than nxp's cortex-m0.
#9
gvigelet
-
- Members
-
- 4 posts
New Member
Posted 23 July 2012 - 03:18 AM
I found the CooCoxSuite and the ARM maintained GNU Toolchain a good combination for working with Cortex MCUs'. The IDE is based on Eclipse and supports many different types of debugging adapters, I only have experience with the ST-Link and J-Link ada8pters but they seem to work well. The only issue is that the support for ST's Cortex-M0 is lacking. With a little work and the samples provided in the discovery kit I was able to get a template project and debugging to work just fine using this IDE. Out of the box the F4 discovery board, LPC1768 development board from Ebay (~65$), and STM32F103VET6 development board off of ebay(~26) works like a charm without any tinkering.
0 user(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users
