Arrow expands support for ARM designs with development kit for STM's STR710 ARM7 micro

Designed and built by Arrow’s in-house engineering team using components from the Arrow linecard, the new development kit brings together the company’s existing ‘Bitfire’ kit with a PMEE (Processor Module with Extended Expansion connector) expansion module. This ‘Atmosfire’ module incorporates the STMicroelectronics microcontroller. The result is a solution that offers significantly more functionality than conventional starter kits and demonstration boards by providing all of the hardware, software and support tools needed to evaluate and develop STR710 applications.

The Bitfire Development Kit hardware has an ARM7TDMI processor as a default target, an Altera Cyclone FPGA with configuration memory, and a large 40 x 16, high intensity bicolour LED matrix. The new Atmosfire PMEE module features the STMicroelectronics STR710 fully integrated ARM7 MCU, 1MB fast SRAM, 16Mbit of serial Flash, a USB mini-B connector and a CPLD device for ‘glue’ logic. When the Atmosfire module is connected, the system automatically configures the STR710 as the target device.

The FPGA design deployed on the Bitfire board contains a high performance LED display driver that supports 8-bit intensity depth on each colour and in each pixel of the built-in display. Dual high-speed CAN channels offer programmable termination, while integrated JTAG tools simplify programming and debugging. Additional connectivity includes a flexible UART interface and programmable RS232 and RS485 connections.

In terms of software, the kit includes a complete suite of development and debug tools based on GNU and the Eclipse IDE/Debugger; a complete set of FPGA development tools along with a fully documented Board Support Package (BSP); graphics library; and a tiny LUA interpreter. Examples in both C and assembler are included. A fully documented FPGA reference design is supplied in VHDL source, and the user is given a choice of ported operating systems, (eCos, FreeRTOS, µC/OS-II™ and µ-Velosity).

The Bitfire and Atmosfire development solution will be unveiled in two workshops taking place in Sweden in May. These two-day workshops, which take place from 21st to 22nd May in Stockholm and from 24th to 25th May in Gothenburg, offer participants an opportunity for hands-on training including testing of different operating systems, USB devices and development environments.