Five years ago ARM introduced the Cortex-M3 into the industry and the variation of products that have evolved from our silicon partners has been huge. ARM has continued to innovate  and released the Cortex-M0, smallest and most power efficient core, in 2008 and most recently announced the Cortex-M4 that adds Digital Signal Control into the microcontroller family. This talk will reflect upon the expanding market requirement for modern microcontrollers and the huge diversity of products developed and applications enabled by the Cortex-M family technologies.

Microcontroller data sheets contain all kinds current information the gives the designer some guidelines of how long a battery last.  However, these numbers have nothing to do with the application and tell little of how efficient the processor is.  In marketing literature uA/MHz is a number touted for comparison, but if a 32 bit processor has the same value versus a 8 bit processor, which is better?  One method that gives much more information is to report how much energy a microcontroller uses for a given workload.  This presentation presents a method for evaluating energy using the CoreMark benchmark along with the results for Cortex M0 and other 8 bit processors.

The widespread adoption of the Cortex-M processor family has created a de facto hardware standard across many semiconductor vendors. This talk introduces the Cortex Microcontroller Interface standard (CMSIS) and the CoreSight  Debug architecture. CMSIS allows developers to rapidly build complex software applications and port them between different manufacturers devices and tools, while Coresight provides a powerful debug interface for development and software validation .

In this session, ST will show you some of the innovative technology used to create the ever expanding range of STM32 Cortex-M3 microcontrollers enabling them to address applications for Low Power, High Performance and for Low Cost.  Having a single core to address all these areas makes it a solid platform choice with a single learning curve and simple reuse of developed codebase and IP.

When most engineers hear the phrase GUI, they immediately think of high level OS’s like Windows, Linux or MacOS. Engineers often assume GUI’s are expensive and time consuming to develop, requiring specialist expertise. Stellaris Cortex-M3 processors are changing the way engineers think of GUI’s, thanks to a unique combination of high performance hardware and optimized, free, easy to use software packages called StellarisWare. This unique combination enables our customers to quickly spin new products from a common hardware platform, clearly differentiating their products from their competition. This presentation describes the basic elements of a GUI and how they have been implemented on Stellaris Cortex-M3 processors. It illustrates how quickly and easy it is to build up a GUI in real-time by layering graphics layers on top of one another using familiar low cost tools. Finally, it demonstrates a GUI running in real-time on the DK-LM3S9B96 Development Platform.

Unlike its ARM7 predecessors, the Cortex M3 design integrates many of the features needed by an RTOS scheduler into the core itself.  Removing the reliance on proprietary peripherals massively improves portability of scheduler code between Cortex M3 devices.  This in turn decreases the effort required, and therefore cost, of obtaining safety certification of the source code on a range of Cortex M3 devices.  This talk will look at the Cortex M3 features available for use by a scheduler, how such software components can be certified for use in Safety Related systems, what pre-certification actually means, and how using pre-certified components can greatly reduce your project risk and cost.

The Cortex-R profile processor is designed for demanding Real Time applications typically found in Automotive and Aerospace. The Cortex-R4 architecture will be at the heart of the next generation of safety critical real time microcontrollers which are poised to enter the market. This presentation gives an introduction to the Cortex-R4 Architecture and its support for secure software applications. 

This session will introduce the mbed tools and mbed.org website, a platform designed for rapid prototyping with ARM microcontrollers.We'll introduce the mbed concept, provide a quick overview of the hardware, online tools and developer platform, and then show how it gets users experimenting quickly. We'll demonstrate how it can help with developing proof-of-concept designs, and some additional benefits such as the online community integration to help with ongoing development and support.

Want to get some hands on experience with Cortex-M microcontrollers? Following the ARM Microcontroller Conference Hitex is running a one day workshop which covers an introduction the Cortex-M microcontroller processor family, hands on exercises with the Keil Microcontroller Development Kit and the RL-ARM middleware library. Spaces are limited so please contact Trevor Martin directly.

For a full agenda please see www.hitex.co.uk/workshop