Coyt Barringer wrote a post on his blog showing how he program the Blue Pill STM32F103 using USB Bootloader and PlatformIO: This is the infamous Blue Pill board – a $2 ARM STM32F103 development board with all the capabilities of a Teensy 3.x at a fraction of the price of an Arduino. So what’s the […]
Category Archives: ARM
Yet another ARM development tutorial
ARM development tutorial at smdprutser.nl: It has been a while since I wrote about ARM development. I recently made a Black Magic Probe (BMP) clone which acts different then the original. The BMP can source power to the target, but on my version control signal is inverted. Not a big deal, but can give unintentional […]
Bit-banding explained: A key feature of ARM Cortex-M3/M4
Yahya Tawil over at Atadiat wrote in to let us know about a corner-stone feature in ARM Cortex-M3 processors called bit-banding: Writing a portable code is one of the concerns for developers, and while dealing with bit-fields is not standard in all compilers, it is not very advisable to use. When a feature is available […]
Hands-on with the PocketBeagle: a $25 Linux computer with lots of I/O pins
Ken Shirriff shares his experience with a low-cost, compact Linux computer PocketBeagle: The PocketBeagle is a tiny but powerful inexpensive key-fob-sized open source Linux computer. It has 44 digital I/O pins, 8 analog inputs, and supports multiple serial I/O protocols, making it very useful as a controller. In addition, its processor includes two 200-MHz microcontrollers that […]
SMA solar readout
Jean-Claude writes: This is the first post of a 3-part series about reading out an SMA solar inverter over Bluetooth and displaying some readings every few seconds. Long-time readers may remember the Solar at last weblog post from several years ago and the SMA Relay, based on a JeeNode v6. The Bluetooth readout code was derived […]
Using Python to store data from many BLE devices
Erich Styger has written an article describing a technique he used to collect and store data from several BLE devices with Raspberry Pi and Python scripting: BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) sensor devices like the Hexiwear are great, but they cannot store a large amount of data. For a research project I have to collect data […]
MCUXpresso IDE tutorial series
Erich Styger has made a series of tutorial blog posts on using the new NXP MCUXpresso IDE. Published so far are: MCUXpresso IDE: Unified Eclipse IDE for NXPs ARM Cortex-M Microcontrollers MCUXpresso IDE: S-Record, Intel Hex and Binary Files MCUXpresso IDE: Adding the Eclipse Marketplace Client MCUXpresso IDE: Importing Kinetis Design Studio Projects MCUXpresso IDE: […]
Modifying the Teensy 3.5 and 3.6 for ARM SWD debugging
Erich Styger @ mcuoneclipse.com writes: Looking for a small, inexpensive ($25-30) ARM development board (say 120-180 MHz ARM Cortex-M4 with FPU, 512kB-1MB of FLASH and 256 KByte of RAM? Then have a look at the Teensy 3.5 and Teensy 3.6 by PJRC/Paul Stoffregen The only problem? it is not possible to debug it :-(. At […]
MQTT with lwip and NXP FRDM-K64F Board
Erich Styger from MCU on Eclipse writes, “In this article I show the basic steps to get MQTT running on the NXP FRDM-K64F board using MCUXpresso IDE, lwip and MQTT. lwip ois a small and open source TCP/IP stack which is widely used. To keep things very simple in this first post, I’m using it in […]
Tutorial: Using Eclipse with NXP MCUXpresso SDK v2 and processor expert
Erich Styger from MCU on Eclipse writes: To me, software and tools are by far more important than the microcontroller. Because the silicon is a ‘one time kind of thing’, where the software has to be maintained and working over a longer time. And at least my software usually needs to be ported to a […]
Cheep Mod II – a low cost platform for Euro-Rack digital audio
Eric Brombaugh writes, “This is a small 6HP Euro-Rack format module with 3 CV inputs, 3 pots, Digital (Sync) input, 16-bit stereo audio outputs. It’s a slight modification of the Cheep Mod I did earlier, but with a slightly more advanced MCU that provides I2S output and has more on-chip flash. One of the goals […]
BlackMagicProbe SMDprutser style
Sjaak has published a new build: When you get started on ARM microcontrollers things are very overwhelming at first… After coping with the first few hurdles like installing a toolchain and IDE, the next part should be getting a tool to program the chip. Many vendors have some kind of bootloader burned in the chip, […]
Debugging ARM Cortex-M0+ HardFaults
Erich Styger has written an article on debugging a hard fault on an ARM Cortex-M0+ device: To me, one of the most frustrating things working with ARM Cortex-M cores are the hard fault exceptions. I have lost several hours this week debugging and tracking an instance of a hard fault on an ARM Cortex-M0+ device. More […]
JeeNode Zero
JeeLabs has been working on a new board called JeeNode Zero: Enter the STM32, the 32-bit ARM series from STMicroelectronics which has been around for several years, with new chip releases at a breathtaking pace. While most of the more advanced chips are only available in 64-, 100-, or even 144-pin packages, there is also an […]
First GD32 tests
Sjaak has published a new build, the STM32/GD32F103 QFN32 breakout board: Uptill now I used 0603 sized resistors and capacitors but for this project I switched to 0402 to save a few mm on the board. I have soldered many challenging chip packages so I felt confident. The technique is the same as for bigger […]
Tutorial: RFID tags with the NXP NFC controller PN7120 and Eclipse
Erich Styger writes: Playing with RFID and NFC is definitely fun?, and they are everywhere! For a research project I’m exploring different RFID tags and solutions. I several types around for a long time, but never found the time to actually work on it, so last nightI thought I give it a try, and I […]
Walking the 32bit path to a blinky LED
Sjaak writes: The battle isn’t AVR Atmega vs Microchip PIC anymore.. More and more people are moving to ARM chips. As easy as it sounds but it isn’t. ARM is an company that invented the ARM chips, but doesn’t has a silicon fab, instead they license the design to several silicon manufacturer like ST, NXP, […]
nRF24L01+ 2.4 GHz wireless connectivity with the tinyK20 board
Erich Styger writes: I’m using the tiny and inexpensive Nordic Semiconductor nRF24L01+ transceiver (see “Tutorial: Nordic Semiconductor nRF24L01+ with the Freescale FRDM-K64F Board“) in many projects: it costs less than $3 and allows me to communicate with a proprietary 2.4GHz protocol in a low power way (see “IoT: FreeRTOS Down to the Micro Amps“). I have […]
Fobble, a general purpose wireless breakout board
Ken Boak has been working on a general purpose wireless breakout board – Fobble: As can be seen from the above picture it contains a number of key features: A resident RFduino Bluetooth Low Energy Module with ARM Cortex M0 processor 2 layer pcb 50 x 50 mm format- with extended Arduino headers pin-out An X-Bee footprint […]
Counting bits in hardware: Reverse engineering the silicon in the ARM1 processor
Ken Shirriff writes: How can you count bits in hardware? In this article, I reverse-engineer the circuit used by the ARM1 processor to count the number of set bits in a 16-bit field, showing how individual transistors form multiplexers, which are combined into adders, and finally form the bit counter. The ARM1 is the ancestor […]