Dev boards will accelerate embedded design claims ST Micro
31-05-2016 | By Paul Whytock
Entry, mid and high-end dev boards for the STM32F7 microcontroller series that are entering volume production with up to 2Mbyte of on-chip Flash have been launched by STMicroelectronics.
Created to provide design start-up support, these dev tools include a STM32 Nucleo-144 board featuring the STM32F767 variant and a Discovery Kit for the STM32F769 which has TFT-LCD and MIPI-DSI support.
The company can also supply evaluation boards for the STM32F769 that have a cryptographic accelerator for security critical apps.
Software support
Developers using the STM32F7 hardware platforms can use software support that comprises the STM32CubeMX initialisation tool and STM32CubeF7 embedded software package including Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) and middleware components like the FreeRTOS real-time operating system, USB library, and lwIP (lightweight IP) open-source TCP/IP stack.
ST Micro believes the STM32F7 system lets developers create microcontroller apps that used to need the resources of a microprocessor unit. The devices, which are based on the 216MHz/462DMIPS/1082 CoreMark ARM Cortex-M7 core with double-precision floating-point unit and DSP instructions feature:
- A Chrom-ART Accelerator and a hardware JPEG accelerator for high-speed graphics rendering.
- Support for TouchGFX which allows high-performance graphics and touch with minimal CPU loading.
- Support for Embedded Wizard which is supplied with a PC-based utility that helps build GUIs.
- STemWin graphics library and development tools.
Also featured are an HDMI Consumer-Electronics Control, a camera interface and dual-mode Quad-SPI interface to high-speed off-chip memory.
Audio facilities include 12bit DACs, I2S serial interface with PLL support, digital filters for a sigma-delta modulator and an S/PDIF receiver.
