STMicro STM32F4 (Cortex M4) vs STM32F7 (Cortex M7) Graphics Demo

STMicro announced their latest STM32F7 micro-controller family based on ARM Cortex M7 last week. As ARM Techcon 2014 is now taking place, the company has uploaded an infomercial on their YouTube account, where STMicro and ARM representatives are interviewed about the new family, and talk about its performance, power consumption, target applications, business prospects, and so on. But there’s also an a short demo with two development kits one with a STM32F4 cortex M4 micro-controller, and the other with a STM32F7 micro-controllers. Since both MCU families are pin-to-pin compatible, the hardware is identical except for the MCU. Both kits are pre-loaded with a 3D graphics demo (ray tracer), and the board with STM32F7 completes the demo in about half the time of the one with STM32F439, allegedly with about the same power consumption (7 coremarks / mW). The video is about 8 minutes long, and the demo starts at 1:25. […]

HydraBus is an Open Source Hardware STM32 Devkit with Support for NFC via HydraNFC Shield

HydraNFC

Recently, I wrote about the public availability of a MicroPython board based on STMicro STM32F4 Cortex M4 support that can easily be programmed with Python. It turns out there’s another STM32 board called HydraBus, also supporting Micro Python firmware, or another embedded firmware based on ChibiOS, together with an optional HydraNFC shield capable of sniffing, reading/writing or emulating any 13.56MHz NFC tags.   HydraBus Specifications: MCU – STMicro TM32F405RG micro-controller @ 168 MHz with 1MB flash, 192KB SRAM, and an FPU. External Storage – Micro SD card slot up to 48MHz (~24MB/s) Expansion Headers – 4 headers with access to 44 I/Os (some already used by micro SD and USB 1 & 2). USB – 2x micro USB connector including 1x OTG port, and 1x device/host port, both with ESD protection. Misc – Reset and user button, user LED, Power – 5V via micro USB port. Dimensions – 60mm x […]

Pyboard MicroPython ARM Cortex M4 Board is Now Available for $45

MicroPython is both a lightweight implementation of Python 3.4 programming language, and a board, aka pyBoard, based on STMicro STM32F4 ARM Cortex M4 micro-controller running Micro Python. The project had a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2013, and they’ve completed shipment of the perks to their backers last June. The company has now launched its own store, so let’s see the progress of the project. The board has been re-designed since Kickstarter campaign, but the specifications remains the similar, but with some extra I/Os exposed: MCU – STMicro STM32F405RG micro-controller @ 168 MHz with 1MB flash, 192KB RAM, and an FPU. External Storage – Micro SD card slot, supporting standard and high capacity SD cards Expansion Headers: 24x GPIO on left and right edges and 5x GPIO on bottom row, plus LED and switch GPIO available on bottom row 3x 12-bit analog to digital converters, available on 16 pins, 4 with […]

STMicro STM32F7 Series is the First ARM Cortex-M7 MCU Family

Right after ARM’s Cortex-M7 announcement, STMicro has listed STM32F7 MCU family based on the latest ARM core on their website. The family is comprised of 20 different MCUs with various flash size, packages, and with or without a crypto/hash coprocessor. The company expects their STM32F756xx microcontrollers to be used for motor drive and application control, medical equipment, industrial applications such as PLC, inverters, and circuit breakers, printers & scanners, alarm systems, video intercom, HVAC, home audio appliances, mobile applications, Internet of Things application, and wearable devices such as smartwatches. STM32F7 MCUs share the following key features: Cortex-M7 core @ 200 Mhz (1000 CoreMark/428 DMIPS) with L1 cache (4KB I-cache, 4KB d-cache) 320KBytes of SRAM with scattered architecture: 240 Kbytes of universal data memory a 16 Kbytes partition for sharing data over the bus matrix 64 Kbytes of Tightly-Coupled Data Memory (DTCM) for time critical data handling (stack, heap…) 16 Kbytes […]

ARM Introduces DSP ‘Lab-in-a-Box’ For Education Combining STMicro STM32F4-Discovery Board and Wolfson Audio Card

DSP (Digital Signal Processing) courses at University have traditionally used software simulation packages (Matlab), or hands-on labs using development kits costing around $300 per student. In order to reduce costs, ARM University program and their corporate partners have launched a DSP ‘Lab-in-a-Box’ so that university students can learn DSP and audio systems with hardware selling for about $50, or over 80% cheaper than previous educational hardware. A typical DSP Lab-in-a-Box (LiB) would come with: STMicroelectronics ARM Cortex-M4-based STM32F4 Discovery MCU board Wolfson Microelectronics and Farnell element14 Wolfson Audio Card. ARM Keil MDK-Professional development tool with a 1-year renewable software license. Teaching materials such as lecture slides, code samples, and hands-on lab manuals. STM32F4-Discovery board features an STM32F407VGT6 MCU (ARM Cortex-M4F core) with 1 MB Flash, and 192 KB RAM, sensors (motion and accelerometer), a digital microphone, and audio DAC, a micro USB connector, and various buttons and LEDs. The Wolfson […]

Low Cost Development Boards Giveaway: Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black, MicroZed, Minnowboard, and more

OpenSystems Media is organizing a giveaway of some development boards targeting hobbyists. They’ll have a draw for the boards at EELive in San Jose, at their booth #2009 on April 1-2, but if you can’t attend you can also get a change to win online. Here’s the list of board given away 2 Raspberry Pi Boards sponsored by Element14 2 BeagleBone Black Boards sponsored by Texas Instruments 2 Minnowboards sponsored by Intel 2 Gizmo Development Boards sponsored by Symmetry Microzed Board from Xilinx sponsored by Avnet Finboard Board from Analog Devices sponsored by Avnet 2 STMicroelectronics Nucleo Boards sponsored by Mouser You could also double your chances to win by tweeting the text below: I just entered to win a #DIY board from @embedded_mag from #EELive.  Click here for your chance to #win http://bit.ly/EElivecontest #embedded I could not find any terms and conditions, so I’m not sure if the giveaway is […]

USB2Go ARM Cortex M3 Development Board for Android Smartphones (Crowdfunding)

Many MCU based development boards such as Arduino or mbed platform connect to a computer via USB for power and programming, at least during the development stage. USB2Go, however, is designed with a micro USB port to connect directly to your Android smartphone, although it can also be used for standalone project, and an Arduino compatible baseboard is also available. This board powered by an STM32 ARM Cortex M3 MCU is however mainly destined to interface hardware such as LED, servos, sensors to your smartphone via micro USB providing both power and a communication channel with your Android device. USB2Go hardware specifications: MCU – STMicro STM32 ARM Cortex M3 MCU @ 72 MHz with 128 KB Flash, 64 KB SRAM USB – Micro USB for power and programming Headers – 2x 12 pin headers giving access to GPIO, ADC, PWM, UART, I2C, SPI… Debugging I/F – JTAG 20-pin to SWD […]

U-Boot & Linux BSP for STMicro STM32 Discovery Board

If you want to run Linux on STM32 Discovery board, more exactly STM32F429 Discovery board, it’s now possible thanks to Emcraft Systems’ BSP for STM32F429 Discovery Board. It will only work on that particular version of the discovery board as it features 64Mbit external SDRAM, which is required for uClinux, and missing on other STM32 Discovery boards. You can either get u-boot and (uC)Linux from the company’s github account which contains the required patches, but lacks complete documentation, and a default config file for the kernel for example, or purchase a BSP ($33) with 3-month support, and pre-built u-boot and Linux binaries. There’s also publicly available documentation explaining how to flash the bootloader and the kernel among other things, and links to relevant external resources, without the need to spend any money. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a […]