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help:confused on cortex m4 board

abhishek srivastava
Intellectual 270 points
hi everyone
i am looking forward to purchase evaluation board for learning cortex m4. i would be requiring GLCD/TFT and camera in future for some image processing applications where i might be using DSP capability of my board and yes,good RAM size.
actually, i am confused between STM32F4 discovery, STM32-P407 or TI Stellaris LM4F120/LM4F232. i also came across easymx pro v7 (TI stellaris based) from microelectronika.
my requirement from board is to have good community support, big RAM (more than 50 Kb atleast), on-board GLCD and camera (if possible,not mandatory), lot of examples and easy to follow manuals so that i can learn quickly and start on  my own.
i am really confused.please help me out.please suggest any other board if you feel that suits me. 
and,yes,budget is also a constrain as i am on my own.
i am looking forward to your replies.
thank you all

Abhishek

  • 0
    Guru 47900 points

    abhishek srivastava said:
    good community support, big RAM, on-board GLCD + camera, lot of examples, easy to follow manuals, and budget constraint!

    That it?  Perhaps you could better highlight - or ease - your needs... <kidding>

    On-board GLCD - imho - is your biggest challenge - avoided by most all ARM MCU vendors - at this time.  (yes - 3 letter vendor has one)

    Suggest instead that you solve the GLCD requirement via use of SSD1963 Graphic Control IC - which includes in-built, display buffer ram.  You talk to this via 8 (better 16 bit) parallel bus.  {nice if at some point Stellaris graduates from 8 bit bus "limitation" - others long have...}  While adding cost/size of this IC - it is well recognized - available on multiple (x-brand) Eval boards - and provides you very needed flexibility by supporting screens up to 800x480 pixels.  And - enables the use of a "lower cost" MCU than would result from MCU+GLCD "combo."  (and still further - you may choose to "not fill" the SSD pcb "slot" - for your lesser applications)

    I'd remove the LX4F120 from consideration - it is not "best/brightest" vendor offering.  (not a PWM Generator in sight - that device!)  Eval boards are available for the others on your list - actual use - "side by side" comparison provides best analysis.  (our findings...) 

    Somehow avoiding your brief "list" - budget choice of IDE may prove unwise.  Suggest one of the free - code-size limited IDEs - from major IDE providers.  These free you to choose "best MCU for the task" - which is unlikely to - at all times - spring from just one source...

    "On my own" - not ideal - find interested others (schools, local firms, vendor contacts) - will aid your development/mastery immensely...

    (neat Verify Answer tick (so deserved - mais non?) gratefully appreciated...

     

  • 0 in reply to cb1
    Guru 11940 points

    In addition to cb1's answer, let me add some points.

    GLCD/Graphics is indeed not one of the strength of Cortex M. In fact, this MCU was not designed for this purpose. So my first hint: graphics is nice, but view it as a gimmick, a nice feature your application should not rely on. The same goes for camera. You might have both, but you are unable to do serious work with it. Neither do MCUs of this class have the throughput to get images from the camera and write it to screen in realtime (say, >10...20 fps), nor do they have the memory for serious image manipulation.

    The STM32F4 has variants with FSMC (external bus interface which can drive also LCD TFT panels. Check the STM3240x-EVAL boards. This boards are nice, but surely not in your price region.  The F4 discovery has no such thing onboard.

    If you find the time, try a STM32F4-Discovery and a LM4F120 launchpad. Both boards are ridiculously cheap, contain a free debug adapter, and are supported by all those IDE's cb1 mentioned. Going through the datasheets will keep you busy for a while. TI and ST provide rather different approaches of a software framework for their MCUs. You might not like everything you get/see. And for the community support, you are about to find out.

  • 0
    Prodigy 230 points

    Hi, abhishek srivastava. I am a green hand on image processing field, too. I also want to find a fine Imaging Processor whose way of processing is simple and fast to help me process images on c#.net. I am testing with the related programs these days. Do you have any ideas about it? Or other good suggestion? Thanks in advance.

    Best regards,

    Arron