Book Image

ARM?? Cortex?? M4 Cookbook

By : Dr. Mark Fisher
Book Image

ARM?? Cortex?? M4 Cookbook

By: Dr. Mark Fisher

Overview of this book

Embedded microcontrollers are at the core of many everyday electronic devices. Electronic automotive systems rely on these devices for engine management, anti-lock brakes, in car entertainment, automatic transmission, active suspension, satellite navigation, etc. The so-called internet of things drives the market for such technology, so much so that embedded cores now represent 90% of all processor’s sold. The ARM Cortex-M4 is one of the most powerful microcontrollers on the market and includes a floating point unit (FPU) which enables it to address applications. The ARM Cortex-M4 Microcontroller Cookbook provides a practical introduction to programming an embedded microcontroller architecture. This book attempts to address this through a series of recipes that develop embedded applications targeting the ARM-Cortex M4 device family. The recipes in this book have all been tested using the Keil MCBSTM32F400 board. This board includes a small graphic LCD touchscreen (320x240 pixels) that can be used to create a variety of 2D gaming applications. These motivate a younger audience and are used throughout the book to illustrate particular hardware peripherals and software concepts. C language is used predominantly throughout but one chapter is devoted to recipes involving assembly language. Programs are mostly written using ARM’s free microcontroller development kit (MDK) but for those looking for open source development environments the book also shows how to configure the ARM-GNU toolchain. Some of the recipes described in the book are the basis for laboratories and assignments undertaken by undergraduates.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
ARM Cortex M4 Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Ideas for games using sound and graphics


The scope to develop games for the MCBSTM32F400 evaluation board is unlimited; however, the restricted memory image imposed by the evaluation version of the MDK constrains their complexity and the size of bitmaps that can be used (we address this issue in Chapter 9, Embedded Toolchain). A number of general introductory texts on game development can inspire new ideas. While we used the topic of generating audio mainly to introduce the audio codec, it is a topic in its own right and those who wish to create a really professional gaming experience should refer to the book, The essential guide to game audio: The theory and practice of sound for games (http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/books). Screenshots of a few examples of games developed by students studying embedded systems are shown in the following screenshot:

The board lends itself to single-player games but two-player scenarios can be accommodated by designing an Artificial Intelligence (AI) opponent...