ARM and STM32 Abbreviations

  If you are new to STM32 microcontroller or programming, while reading datasheets you are going to encounter a lot of terms or abbreviations that you don't know.

  I wanted to make a list for most of the terms and their abbreviations/descriptions. I'm going to update the list, feel free to offer additions.

A/D Converter: Analog Digital Converter

ADC : Analog Digital Converter

AHB : Advanced High Performance Bus

APB : Advanced Peripheral Bus

ART Accelator : Adaptive Real Time Accelator

B: Dedicated to BOOT0 Pin (Pin Abbreviation)

BCD : Binary Coded Decimal 

BGA : Ball Grid Array 

BJT : Bipolar Junction Transistor

BOR : Brownout Reset

BQFP : Bumpered Quad Flat Package

CAN : Controller Area Network

CF : Compact Flash

CMOS : Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor

CQFP : Ceramic Quad Flat Package   

CRC : Cyclic Redundancy Check 

CTS : Clear to Send

D/A Converter : Digital Analog Converter

DAC : Digital Analog Converter

DCE : Data Communication Equipment

DCMI : Digital Camera Interface 

DFU : Device Firmware Upgrade

DMA : Direct Memory Access

DMIPS : Dhrystone Million Instructions Per Second

DSP : Digital Signal Processing

DTE : Data Terminal Equipment

EMI : Electromagnetic Interference

EMS : Electromagnetic Susceptibility

ESD : Electrostatic Discharge

ESR : Equivalent Series Resistance

ETM : Embedded Trace Macrocell

EXTI : External Interrupt

FET : Field Effect Transistor

FIFO : First In, First Out 

FM+ : Fast Mode Plus (Pin Abbreviation)

FPGA : Field Programmable Gate Array

FPU : Floating Point Unit

FPU : Floating Point Unit 

FSMC : Flexible Static Memory Controller

FT : 5V Tolerant Input Output Pin (Pin Abbreviation)

FTB : Fast Transient Burst (Voltage)

FTf : 5V Tolerant Input Output Pin with FM+ capable (Pin Abbreviation)

GPIO : General Purpose Input Output

HSE : High Speed External (Oscillator/Clock)

HSI : High Speed Internal (Oscillator/Clock)

HVAC : Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning

I : Input Only Pin (Pin Abbreviation)

I/O : Input Output Pin (Pin Abbreviation)

I/O : Input/Output 

I2C : Inter Integrated Circuit, aka I squared C

I2S : Inter-IC Sound, Integrated Interchip Sound

IC : Input Capture

IC : Integrated Circuit

IRDA : Infrared Data Association

IWDG : Independent Watch Dog

JTAG : Joint Test Action Group

LAN : Local Area Network

LIN : Local Interconnect Network 

LPR : Low Power Regulator 

LQFP : Low Profile Quad Flat Package

LSE : Low Speed External (Oscillator/Clock)
LSI : Low Speed Internal (Oscillator/Clock)

MAC : Media Access Control (Address)

MCU : Micro Controller Unit

MII : Media Independent Interface

MIPS : Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages

MIPS : Million Instructions Per Second 

MISO : Master Input Slave Output (Serial Peripheral Interface Bus Abbreviation)

MMC : Multi Media Card

MOSI : Master Output Slave In (Serial Peripheral Interface Bus Abbreviation)

MPU : Memory Protection Unit

MR : Main Regulator

MSPS : Mega Sample Per Second

NC : Normally Closed 

NC : Not Connected

NO : Normally Open

NRST : nRESET (Pin)

NVIC : Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller

OC : Output Compare

PDR : Power Down Reset

PHY : Physical (Layer)

PLC : Programmable Logic Controller

PLL : Phase Locked Loop

PM Bus : Power Management Bus

POR : Power On Reset

PPB : Private Peripheral Bus

PVD : Programmable Voltage Detector

PWM : Pulse Width Modulation 

QFP :  Quad Flat Package

RAM : Random Access Memory 

RC : Resistor Capacitor

RMII : Reduced Media Independent Interface

RNG : Random Number Generator

RST : Bidirectional Reset Pin With Embedded Weak Pull Up Resistor 

RTC : Real Time Clock

RTS : Request to Send
RTR : Ready to Receive

S : Supply Pin (Pin Abbreviation)

SCL : Serial Clock Line

SCLK : Serial Clock (Serial Peripheral Interface Bus Abbreviation)

SDA : Serial Data Line

SDIO : Secure Digital Input Output

SM Bus : System Management Bus

SMI : Serial Management Interface

SPI : Serial Peripheral Interface 

SRAM : Static Random Access Memory

SS : Slave Select (Serial Peripheral Interface Bus Abbreviation)

SSCG : Spread Spectrum Clock Generation

SWD : Serial Wire Debug

TC: Standartd 3.3V Input Output Pin (Pin Abbreviation)

TIM : Timer

TPA : Trace Port Analyzer

TPIU : Trace Port Interface Unit 

TQFP : Thin Quad Flat Package

TTa : 3.3V Tolerant Input Output Pin Directly Connected to ADC (Pin Abbreviation)

UART : Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter

ULPI : Utmi Low Pin Interface

USART : Universal Synchronous Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter

USB OTG : USB On The Go

UTMI : USB 2.0 Transceiver Macrocell Interface

VBAT : Battery Voltage Supply (Pin)

VCC :  Positive Supply Voltage (BJT)

VDD : Positive Supply Voltage (FET)

VEE : Negative Supply (Ground) (BJT)

VSS : Negative Supply (Ground) (FET)

WWDG : Windows Watch Dog

STM32 Software Development Tools

   After deciding which microcontroller should i choose,  next question is what should I use to develop on STM32. You should select a development platform for your MCU (Microcontroller Unit). There are multiple choices :

1) KEIL MKD-ARM

   In my blog, i am going to use KEIL uVision and ST Standart Peripheral Library. KEIL MDK-ARM Microcontroller Devolopment Kit is not free unfortunately. But luckily it is fully functional up to 32KB projects.

32KB is fair enough for test applications. µVision (i will say uVision later) is a great IDE for development and debugging. It supoorts intellisense like feature called autocomplete.

Multiproject workspace feature allows simultaneous projects in the same environment. Advanced debug feature allows easy and detailed debugging sessions. 

KEIL supports latest ARM Cortex M7 processor. You can download from the below link :

http://www.keil.com/arm/mdk.asp

2) IAR EMBEDDED WORKBENCH FOR ARM

   IAR is an another successful compiler/debugger for ARM architecture. It also supports latest ARM Cortex M7 processors.

   It also integrates C-Run. C-Run is a runtime analysis add on. Buffer overflow detection, detection of value changes while casting operations are some of the features.

Unfortunately IAR is not free also. But you have two options :

a) Time Limited Version : You can use IAR for 30Days with full functionality, you can not use for commercial applications.

b) Size Limited Version : Your code is limited to 32KB,  no MISRA C support, no power debug support, runtime libraries are not included.

Yes i know a third option also ;)

You can download IAR from below :

http://www.iar.com/Service-Center/Downloads/

3) HITEX (HiTOP FOR CORTEX)

    HiTOP is another development platform for Cortex M processors. This one has also code size and time limitation.



Personally i haven't tried yet, you can check from the below link :

http://www.hitex.com/index.php?id=download-hitop540&L=%255C%255C%255C%2527241

Link changes according to version, if the above link is broken then go to hitex web site's download section :

http://www.hitex.com

4) ATOLLIC (TRUESTUDIO FOR ARM)

    Atollic TrueStudio is a compiler and debugger for ARM. Importing Eclipse IDE and GNU Toolchain projects are supported.


You have to pay for good ones, 30 day evaluation version is avaliable, check the link below :

http://atollic.com/index.php/truestudio

5) RAINSONANCE (RKit-ARM)

    RKit-Arm is a compiler, debugger and editor package for ARM. It has an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) called Ride7.

   As always this one is not free also. But you can use for 30 Day in evaluation mode. Check the links below for details :

http://www.raisonance.com/
http://www.raisonance.com/ride7.html

6) MIKROELEKTRONIKA (mikroC, mikroBASIC, mikroPASCAL for ARM)

    MikroElektronika has it's own libraries for popular devices like touch control chips, lcd libraries, sd/mmc card libraries etc and wide example projects.

   You can use three different products : mikroC, mikroBASIC or mikroPASCAL. Costs about $250 to $300, free versions are fully functional but has a funny 8KB code limit.

meh, 8KB code limit is funny for arm. You can check mikroelektronika web page :

http://www.mikroe.com/arm/compilers/

7) CODE::BLOCKS

    Code::Blocks is a free IDE for C and C++. For using STM32 development you have to install an external debugger plugin called Embedded Plugin Suite (EPS)


    Code::Blocks IDE is free but EPS costs about €120 per series, ie if you want STM32F1 and STM32F4 support you have to pay €240.

Code::Blocks web site :

http://www.codeblocks.org/

Embedded Plugin Suite web site : 

http://www.comsytec.eu/

 

 8) CooCox CoIDE

    You are not going to believe me but it is free ! CooCox has integrated CoBuilder and CoDebugger features. 


Another good side is you can use CoOS, a free open source RTOS (Real Time Operating System). Give it a try, here is the link :

http://www.coocox.org

 9) ECLIPSE IDE

   Eclipse IDE is not enough for embedded programming alone but with a few tools, you can develop for free. What you need is a compiler, debugger and maybe a RTOS.




   You can use GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) for free. For debugging purposes you can use Open OCD (Open On Chip Debugger), and it is free also. If you need a RTOS then freeRTOS is a good choice.

So Eclipse IDE + GCC + Open OCD + FreeRTOS is a killer combo.

And here is the GNU ARM Eclipse Plugins :

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnuarmeclipse/

 10) MIOSIX
 

  For using Miosix you will need a computer running on Linux. I hope they release Windows version also because it has mxgui, you can get real time 3D renders really fast.
Miosix uses Netbeans IDE. But Netbeans is not supporting Miosix, you have to configure it for yourself.

For instructions an downloads here is the Miosix web page link :

http://miosix.org

Which microcontroller should i choose ?

STM (STMicroelectronics)  offers wide range of microcontrollers but which one you should choose?  You should consider some basic parameters.

1) Flash Memory

This is where your programs are stored. For STM32 series microcontrollers typically it varies between 128KB to 2MB.

2) RAM

RAM sizes in microcontrollers aren't that big compared to computers. They are typically in KB range. 64KB to 256KB is common for STM32 series

3) FREQUENCY

In modern CPUs frequencies are measured in GHz but if you are not using Cortex A series your frequency range is measured in MHz. For example STM32F407 runs at 168Mhz.

4) PERIPHERALS and INTERFACES

Which peripherals and interfaces do you need for your project ?

ADC (Analog to Digital Converter)
CAN (Controller Area Network)
DAC ( Digital to Analog Converter)
DCMI (Digital Camera Interface)
DMA (Direct Memory Access)
FSMC (Flexible Static Memory Controller)
I2C (Inter Integrated Circuit aka I squared C)
SDIO (Secure Digital Input Output)
SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface)
TIMER (Hardware Timers)
UART/USART (Universal Asyncronous Receiver Transmitter/Universal Syncronous Asyncronous Receiver Transmitter)

5) PRICE

This is not your concern if you are a hobbyist or only prototyping. But if you are planning to manufacture your design 1000+ quantities, you should consider prices.

If STM32F1 is enough for your project than using STM32F4 costs you a lot of money.


You can use ST-MCU-FINDER application. Supports IOS, Android and Windows platforms

http://www.st.com/web/catalog/tools/FM147/CL1794/SC961/SS1533/PF260223