Book Image

The Insider's Guide to Arm Cortex-M Development

By : Zachary Lasiuk, Pareena Verma, Jason Andrews
Book Image

The Insider's Guide to Arm Cortex-M Development

By: Zachary Lasiuk, Pareena Verma, Jason Andrews

Overview of this book

Cortex-M has been around since 2004, so why a new book now? With new microcontrollers based on the Cortex-M55 and Cortex-M85 being introduced this year, Cortex-M continues to expand. New software concepts, such as standardized software reuse, have emerged alongside new topics including security and machine learning. Development methodologies have also significantly advanced, with more embedded development taking place in the cloud and increased levels of automation. Due to these advances, a single engineer can no longer understand an entire project and requires new skills to be successful. This book provides a unique view of how to navigate and apply the latest concepts in microcontroller development. The book is split into two parts. First, you’ll be guided through how to select the ideal set of hardware, software, and tools for your specific project. Next, you’ll explore how to implement essential topics for modern embedded developers. Throughout the book, there are examples for you to learn by working with real Cortex-M devices with all software available on GitHub. You will gain experience with the small Cortex-M0+, the powerful Cortex-M55, and more Cortex-M processors. By the end of this book, you’ll be able to practically apply modern Cortex-M software development concepts.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
1
Part 1: Get Set Up
5
Part 2: Sharpen Your Skills

Examining development platforms

Development platforms generally refer to the ways we run or execute software. Of course, the final destination to execute software is on the physical product being created, but during development, this hardware system may not be available. If the hardware is not available, software developers turn to one or more development platforms to test what they can and do as much as possible while waiting for the final hardware. There are a number of ways to perform early software development, each with its pros and cons. In this section, we will highlight some alternatives and provide guidance on why or when to use them. Cortex-M developers are most likely to focus on the first set of platforms, which we call software-centric. However, some developers may also use hardware-centric platforms in large teams developing low-level firmware for chips. We will discuss both sets to provide a full context of what is available.

Software-centric development platforms...