NXP Kinetis Category - Page 5 of 6 - CNX Software

February 27, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

mbed 2.0 SDK Released, becomes Open Source and Supports $12.95 Freescale Freedom Board

The mbed community has had a pretty busy week, with first the announcement that mbed SDK would become open source, the release of mbed 2.0, and finally support for the low cost Freescale Freedom board FRDM-KL25Zpowered by Kinetis Cortex M0+ KL25Z MCU. mbed becomes open source The mbed Software Development Kit (SDK), a C/C++ MCU software platform, has always been free (as in free beer) for both commercial and noncommercial use, and the large community around mbed has written tons of code for ARM microcontrollers. But now that the SDK has now a stable API, and the developers achieved transparent portability for code based on the SDK across multiple controllers and multiple toolchains, they decided to release the SDK source under an Apache 2.0 license. Although sharing modifications is encouraged, this license allows users to keep the changes closed if they wish to do so. mbed developers explain that the 3 […]

February 25, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Adding Wi-Fi to Emcraft Systems K70 SoM

Emcraft Systems K70 SoM is a system-on-module powered by Freescale K70 Cortex M4 micro-controller with enough RAM (64 MB) to comfortably run uClinux. They used to charge $99 for their uCLinux BSP, but it’s now free of charge, and the company also provides full hardware and software documentation, including a getting started guide, schematics and BoM for the baseboard, application notes and more… Many of their clients want to use Wi-Fi with K70 SoM, and it can easily be done by using Wi-Fi USB dongles based on Ralink RT5370 chipset such as D-Link DWA-140 (H/W rev B3) or Comfast CF-WU815N. Emcraft has provided detailed instructions to do so with K70 SoM, their latest baseboard (SOM-BSB-EXT) and a demo image based on their uClinux BSP. I’ll summarize the instructions to use K70 SoM as a Wi-Fi access point below. Connect the baseboard and K70 SoM with an Ethernet cable, a mini […]

September 26, 2012December 16, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

uClinux on Cortex-M3/M4 MCU: The Costs, Performance and Power Consumption

I previously wrote about different options available to run Linux on Cortex M3 & M4 Microcontrollers, and more recently Vladimir Khusainov, co-founder and Director of Engineering at Emcraft Systems,wrote a longish article entitled “Practical Advice on Running uClinux on Cortex-M3/M4” on electronicdesign.com, where he explains how SoM are usually selected, the costs of running uClinux on Cortex M3/M4 MCUs such as Freescale K70 or STmicroelectronics STM32F2/F4, as well as performance and power consumption considerations. First, Vladimir addresses one comment that says there’s basically no use for uClinux on Cortex M3/M4 MCU, since external memory is needed and an ARM7/ARM9 modules (with MMU) can be purchased for almost the same price. There are 2 counter arguments to this point of view: In practice, customers usually select an hardware platform first, then think what OS can be used on the platform. For example, if a company decided to use an hardware based […]

June 25, 2012July 17, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Motomic Butterfly Media Grid Renders Pictures and Videos on Freescale Kinetis K70 Cortex-M4 MCU

Motomic has officially announced Butterfly Media Grid, the first media player for Cortex M4 micro-controllers. The software currently runs on Freescale MQX Real-Time Operating System, and can display pictures and logos, as well as play videos on micro-controllers such as the Freescale Kinetis K70 MCU. Here are Media Grid key features: Display images, logos and videos Configure from full screen to grids up to 10×10 Rotate content Configure to optimize performance Display at resolutions up to HD Update over a network. Media Grid is available as a standalone application, and an SDK is also provided in order to embed the technology in custom applications using C, C++ or Qt interfaces. Since the media can be updated over the network, Media Grid is actually similar to a simple digital signage player for low end hardware. Motomic showcased the Media Grid at Design West, in March 2012, and only recently uploaded a […]

June 20, 2012June 26, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Freescale Announces Availability of Kinetis L Series Cortex M0+ MCU and Freedom Devkit

ARM unveiled its ultra-low power Cortex-M0+ core back in March, and Freescale and NXP also announced their plans to use this new core in some of their micro-controllers destined to power the internet of things. Yesterday at Freescale Technology Forum (FTF), Freescale announced the availability of alpha samples of its Kinetis L series. This new low power MCU family will allow existing 8-bit and 16-bit architecture to be replaced by 32-bit architecture without increasing power consumption, cost or size, and the company expects them to be used in devices such as small appliances, gaming accessories, portable medical systems, audio systems, smart meters, lighting and power control. The ARM Cortex-M0+ processor is said to consume about a third of the energy of any 8- or 16-bit processor, while delivering between two to 40 times more performance. Kinetis L series MCU can consume as low as 50 uA/MHz in very-low-power run (VLPR) […]

June 18, 2012June 3, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Getting Started with Emcraft Systems Cortex M3/M4 Starter Kits Running uCLinux

A few months ago, I wrote a post about running uCLinux on Cortex M3/M4. Since then I’ve had the opportunity to play a with Cortex M3 & M4 boards capable of running Linux, as last week, I received Emcraft Systems Freescale K70 Starter Kit together with their MicroSemi (previously known as Actel) Smartfusion SoM. Today, I’ll show some pictures of the baseboard and modules I received in the kit, and some details about the documentation and how to get started with the modules. Unboxing Pictures Here’s the baseboard with Ethernet, USB interface using USB-UART bridge connected to the UART0, JTAG connectors (P3 and P5), two push-buttons and a breadboard for easy access to unused signals (ADC, I2C, SPI, UART and GPIOs). P4 and P6 are the sockets to plug in the SoM. There is a lithium-ion battery (CR2016) at the back of the board for the RTC clock. As previously […]

June 5, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Freescale Announces Kinetis KW20 Cortex M4 MCU with Built-in Zigbee Transceiver

Freescale announced the addition of the Kinetis KW20 to its Kinetis microcontroller portfolio. The Kinetis KW20 is based on ARMCortex-M4 core and MC13242 RF transceiver to deliver a single chip Zigbee solution for the Internet of Things and power applications such as smart energy, smart metering and building control. The company explains that their new wireless MCU family aims to “address the increased processing and memory requirements associated with future ZigBee Smart Energy 2.0 and Internet Protocol specifications”. The KW20 supports dual personal area network (PAN) to enable a single device to communicate wirelessly on two ZigBee networks. This feature eliminates the need for multiple radios required to connect different home automation and smart energy networks. Kinetis KW20 wireless MCU features: ARM Cortex-M4 processor core Up to 512 KB of flash memory and 64 KB of RAM Cryptology accelerator and sophisticated tamper detect Integrated IEEE 802.15.4-compliant radio (MC13242 RF transceiver) Low […]

April 19, 2012April 19, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Emcraft Open Sources uCLinux and U-boot for Cortex M3 and M4 MCUs

Emcraft Systems has open sourced its ports of U-Boot and uClinux for Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M4 which are available on github at https://github.com/EmcraftSystems. This release supports the following platforms: ST Micro STM32F2 NXP LPC17XX Actel SmartFusion Freescale Kinetis You can check the source code as follows: uCLinux: git clone git://github.com/EmcraftSystems/linux-emcraft.git U-boot: git clone git://github.com/EmcraftSystems/u-boot.git The company has also designed systems on module (SoM) with enough memory to run Linux with Cortex M3/M4 micro-controllers: Freescale Kinetis K70 SOM Actec SmartFusion SOM ST Micro STM32 SOM You might find more details on building/using u-boot or uClinux on EmCraft documentation page (especially linux-cortexm-um-1.4.1.pdf) and you may want to check EmCraft website for details on available hardware and BSP for Cortex M3/M4 solutions. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later […]