Designers looking to work with STMicroelectronics' STM32 microcontrollers can now do so using the company's STMCube software development platform. According to the company, it has now completed roll out of the package to all members of the STM32 MCU family currently in production.
STM32Cube allows designers to start working with any STM32 device, simplifying porting of code from one product series to another. It comprises the STM32CubeMX graphical configurator and initialisation C-code generator, which provides wizards that help configure the pin out, clock tree and peripherals. It also helps engineers to meet power consumption constraints.
After configuration, the tool not only generates C initialisation code, it can also download the corresponding embedded software automatically. ST says this saves time and helps to overcome resource conflicts.
STM32CubeMX is not dedicated to a proprietary development environment and can be used with such IDEs such as ARM/Keil MDK-ARM, IAR's EWARM and those based on GCC.
STM32Cube also provides embedded software packages for members of the STM32 series. The latest package to be added supports STM32F1 devices and any future STM32 families will receive STM32Cube support upon introduction.
Each embedded software package comprises a hardware abstraction layer with fully portable APIs, checked using Grammatech CodeSonar. Closely integrated middleware is said to eliminate the task of assessing dependencies between individual software components. In addition, a built-in update mechanism relieves the burden of checking software status.
Middleware includes: the LwIP open source TCP/IP stack; FreeRTOS with the CMSIS-RTOS wrapper; an open source FatFS file system; and ST's USB Host and Device library, touch sensing library and STemWin graphics stack.
