With technology companies looking to boost product performance, whether that’s the latest process equipment, factory-automation systems, logistics and retail, IoT devices, or digital signage technology, there is a growing demand for greater host-system performance than microcontrollers (MCUs) can typically provide.
ST’s STM32MP1 microprocessors (MPUs) look to address this trend by using an Arm Cortex-A7 application-class architecture with more processing power and memory. Users can now take advantage of a new software pack, the STM32CubeMP13, to migrate code originally designed for smaller, simpler MCUs by providing extra capabilities in their next-generation products.
The STM32CubeMP13 enables an embedded bare-metal application or RTOS on STM32MP13 SoCs, giving an alternative to OpenSTLinux that ensures faster execution times compared to typical microcontrollers. Users can also ensure ported code continues to meet the original implementation’s hard real-time specifications, such as interrupt times and latency.
Moreover, an RTOS can leverage the MPU’s larger memory while preserving low power consumption.
Fully integrated in the STM32Cube ecosystem, STM32CubeMP13 enables designers already using ST’s STM32 embedded microcontrollers to move up to higher-performance MPU-based projects within the same, familiar development environment. This includes the STM32CubeMX device configurator, STM32CubeIDE development tools, and STM32CubeProgrammer.
STM32CubeMP13 comes with all the components needed to run embedded code on STM32MP13 Arm Cortex-A7 MPUs, including the board support package (BSP) and hardware abstraction layer (HAL).
Azure RTOS (moving to Eclipse ThreadX) comes pre-integrated as an example real-time operating system.
Also, code samples are provided that help embedded developers handle the extra complexity of MPU-based systems, including booting from external memory and power management including DDR-RAM self-refresh control.
The software is available free of charge and ready to download.
