TI 5$ ARM CORTEX deal
HollyMinkowski
Posts: 1,398
Hi all :-)
Had to take just a minute to post this.
Got an email yesterday about a great deal.
I see the info is also up on HaD
http://hackaday.com/2012/08/31/preorder-tis-arm-cortex-m4-launchpad-for-5-delivered/
OK, so it's definitely NOT as easy to use as the great Propeller. However, it's pretty
powerful and although you have to handle interrupts you can get excellent timing accuracy
with ARM Cortex... deterministic! If I remember correctly a guaranteed 12 cycles until
your critical level int code runs....not long at 80mhz
The 62 pin LQFP can be drag soldered if you have a steady hand and a bit of practice.
256k flash, 32k sram, 2k eeprom.
NO ASM REQUIRED for the Cortex... not even bootstrap code!
4.99 USD and free shipping. (even international)
Single V power supply because Cortex has an internal regulator.
FPU :-)
Easy low-power sleep, especially since most apps will be pretty much all int code.
Just throw in a sleep command in the main loop and you are green.
There are so many peripherals and so much going on in these chips it's hard
to summarize it. The data sheet is longer than the Torah I think ;-)
Gotta run....
Had to take just a minute to post this.
Got an email yesterday about a great deal.
I see the info is also up on HaD
http://hackaday.com/2012/08/31/preorder-tis-arm-cortex-m4-launchpad-for-5-delivered/
OK, so it's definitely NOT as easy to use as the great Propeller. However, it's pretty
powerful and although you have to handle interrupts you can get excellent timing accuracy
with ARM Cortex... deterministic! If I remember correctly a guaranteed 12 cycles until
your critical level int code runs....not long at 80mhz
The 62 pin LQFP can be drag soldered if you have a steady hand and a bit of practice.
256k flash, 32k sram, 2k eeprom.
NO ASM REQUIRED for the Cortex... not even bootstrap code!
4.99 USD and free shipping. (even international)
Single V power supply because Cortex has an internal regulator.
FPU :-)
Easy low-power sleep, especially since most apps will be pretty much all int code.
Just throw in a sleep command in the main loop and you are green.
There are so many peripherals and so much going on in these chips it's hard
to summarize it. The data sheet is longer than the Torah I think ;-)
Gotta run....
Comments
I ordered two of these as that's the limit.
Nice to see gcc is really coming along for the Prop!
Everyone will be prepared to jump in and try gcc for the ARM soon.
Once you get past the setup and get that first LED blinking then
the rest is easy.
I didn't hesitate five seconds to order two of these. Only downside appears to be that the lovely Code Red tool chain provided for the LPCXpresso boards has no parallel in this offer from TI. I've used both Keil and IAR extensively at work, but they're both very pricey, and their gimped evaluation versions are cleverly designed to be of no practical use. So I guess it remains to be seen what IDE/compiler I'll be using with these boards. Nevertheless, this is a fabulous deal...kinda like erco's e-reader... Best dang deal ever.
As for a full-featured development system, the best deal I found was $999, from Code Red. Code Red, of course, is built around Eclipse & gcc.
Edit: Since the ARM on this board has 12 12-bit ADC channels (in addition to four SPI, four I2C, and eight UARTs), it could function as a super-replacement for an MCP3208...as a peripheral for the P1.
At least the whole Meggilah!
What exactly do you need doing?
The board is pretty much a blank slate. The intent, no doubt, is that the purchaser has some application in mind.
So I guess the answer is: Anything you can do with an 80MHz, 32-bit processor, eight UARTS, four SPI, four I2C, CAN, and a USB 2.0.
The cheapest (paid) available compiler is actually MikroE for ARM (Stellaris and STM32), which starts from $299.
Since it has an FPU, I would try to do some sound processing applications inside...
http://www.rowley.co.uk/arm/index.htm
Don't forget about the STM32F4DISCOVERY board for $14.55. It's faster and has more memory + a audio DAC. Mouser has'em.
Delighted to hear about the Rowley Crossworks and MikroE compilers. I'll certainly be checking in to them.
Follow-up: Rowley it is. I appreciate the reference, Rod1963. I'm extremely pleased they offer a Personal Licence. I'm happy to pay my way, I just don't like getting taken to the cleaners.
Have you tried CooCox ?
http://coocox.org/
http://coocox.org/CoIDE/CoIDE_Updates.htm
I see mention of Stellaris-ICDI support - not sure if that is what is on the Board here.
Edit : I see the TI Board has TWO LM4F120's, one used just for the Debug!!
Smart marketing, and that's a lot of grunt for a debug link, and I guess they did not want to send ANY money to FTDI ?
I also see this
Pre-production superset device LX4F230H5QRFIGA3 samples available now. The "X" indicates that the device is experimental silicon. and the Photo shows a LX4 device.
Supplied part is LM4F120H5QR 256KF 32K Ram, and it mentions 5-V Tolerant GPIOs, on what looks like all but 2 Pins (43 5V I/O on the 64 pin part, 105 5V tolerant IO on the 144 pin part)
Regarding my experience installing CooCox: Ugh! The gnu toolchain for ARM Cortex M processors installed without a hitch, but installing CoIDE is not going well at all...I'm involved at the moment in a morass of permissions and dependencies. But the promise is great, so I'll pursue it a while longer. Good to know that Rowley Crossworks is available to fall back on. and the CooIDE installed easily as well, once I recovered from a temporary brain cramp.
when i saw this thread initially i was turned off becuase my experince with the msp quicklaunch sucks all the toolchain options suck or are way bloated, the programming protocal for the msp430 is propriatary the whole ti msp experince is a nightmare. i got a 4 dollar programmer and the gnu toolchain working on a variety of breadboarded 8 and 16 avr bit micros in an hour or so i jave yet to get some code for the net running on an msp430.
This particular Ti chip isn't listed as an option when configuring the IDE. Instead there is a single generic M4F-- Hobson's choice. How well that will work with this chip, I don't know. But the code compiles. Now the board needs to get here...
What? That is a good deal? Spend a grand to program a 5 dollar piece of hardware in this day and age.
GCC is a free and open source compiler. Eclipes is a free and open source IDE. Would you consider it a good offer if Parallax bundled up propgcc and Eclipse for Propeller customers for a thousand dollars?
Now, what is a poor boy supposed to do? Given that I shell out 5 or 10 dollars for that ARM board and I can obtain or build a GCC cross compiler for it's ARM CPU can I obtain/make the required programmer interface for it for another 10 dollars or so?
There are reasons we gave up on VxWorks on a range of embedded ARM products years ago. Vxworks did not work, WindRiver would not fix it, the supplied version of GCC was old and buggy and it was damn exensive. Now all that stuff runs Linux.
At work we consider $5000 a good deal. Management considers IAR EWARM to be the only way to go. I guess when you're designing expensive medical devices, you sleep easier knowing you bought the best money can buy. Whether it is actually better, I don't know. For my own private use I've been extremely pleased with Code Red and NXP M3 chips. Code Red seems a lot less stodgy than IAR.
Absolutely.
Why on earth can't I just have 10 dollar programming dongle for a thing like that (Think Propeller Plug) and be able to use a command line GCC from my Linux or other OS box? For sure I don't want or need yet another crappy IDE.
I can understand that. If you are in business with a good margin, high volume or high markup, a few K may not be a big deal and dropping it on a dev kit or other tools can save time and hence money. I hope these tool providers are offering a lot of added value to justify the thousand dollars for otherwise free components.
But we are here on a hobbiest and small business forum (as much as Parallax, and I, would like to see that move up scale a bit) and talking about a 5 dollar board where it does not make sense.
So, what is the answere to this poor boys question? Or should I just forget it and continue with my 30 dollar Rasperry Pi already complete with dev tools and operating systems galore.
I sympathize completely. I love the Prop Plug and the Prop 'Tool. I was disappointed when I heard that P2 will be supported only by SimpleIDE. FWIW, the greatest development system/debugger I've ever used was the SX-Key, which was my first involvement with Parallax. Modern-day Eclipse-like IDEs are unnecessarily busy. I guess I've gotten used to jumping through their hoops, though. I don't suppose a labor of love will ever come along again as great as the SX-Key, and certainly not in the ARM arena.
Who ever told you that? SimpleIDE is optional. There has been much talk of Eclipse and I belive people have already been toying with Code::Blocks and others. Who knows what the future will bring?
For Spin development I'm sure SimpleIDE will be as quick and easy as the Prop Tool with the huge advantage of being cross platform.
I agree. Tying to use Eclipse for XMOS development drove me back to vim and make pretty quickly. Sadly you have to get into Eclipse to use their timing analysis tools and such.
I said that wrong. What I should have said is that Prop Tool will not be adapted for the P2. I don't read all forum posts, but that was the last news I got.
BTW, this discussion causes me to ponder the possibilities of an SX Key-like thingy for a specific ARM chip or ARM family. The quest for universal flexibility seems to be what led to modern ARM IDEs. The number of configuration options in IAR, for example, is staggering. 50% of all hobby needs might be satisfied with just one well-chosen ARM chip. A simple, easy-to-use, and clever development system aimed at it alone (but leveraging the gnu ARM toolchain, by all means) is something I'm going to give more thought.
CooCox says this
CooCox CoIDE V1.2.2 1/29/2011
Added: Support FTDI compatible devices: Olimex-OpenOCD and Stellaris-ICDI.
so Stellaris-ICDI has been there for a while, but I notice the LM4F120 board discussed here, does not use FTDI, instead it has a second LM4F120.
That may mean some driver juggling, or a wait for CooCox to support the LM4F120 Hosted Debug link.
I've briefly used CooCox on Nuvoton, and I think they need a specific library/startup version for each supported device.
Searching their forum for Stellaris gives 66 hits
http://www.coocox.org/forum/search.php?q=Stellaris
and this from 9 months ago
Dear all,
CooCox will support Cortex M4 in the first quarter of 2012.
Thanks for your support!
Best Regards
Grace
So they know Stellaris already, and are somewhat new to M4, but do already have some working code, on M4, if not the LM4F120.
is here
http://www.mikroe.com/mikropascal/arm/
This Oberon (Pascal derivative) ARM toolchain has recently added M3, but M4 is still coming.
http://www.astrobe.com/default.htm
Also, it is fascinating that an LM4F120 costs TI less than an FTDI chip...and since the LM4F120 has USB 2.0 connectivity, why not use it? Manufacturing volumes go up, and per-unit price goes down.
edit: MikroPascal for ARM... Fascinating!