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Cortex M4 Evaluation Board

Sridhar Artham
Intellectual 330 points
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: EK-TM4C1294XL

Hi All,


I am interested in purchase of Cortex M4 evaluation board. Requirement is optimization of audio/speech algorithms on Cortex M4 processor. Since we don't have cycle accurate simulator, I decided to go for evaluation board.

I have tools of RVDS4.1, where I can do functional validation of my algorithms.

When I was doing googling, I came across the "Tiva™ C Series LaunchPad Evaluation Kit".

Is it possible that to get the CPU load of the C/ASM modules on the board? Can I use GCC cross compiler Code Sourcery for generating executable compatible for Cortex M4? What is the tool used for communicating with the board i.e. to see the outputs(prints/logs)?

One of the features of the board, it supports only 512 KB of SRAM. This is not sufficient for my use case. I need more SRAM. Is it possible to increase the SRAM size of the board?

Thanks in advance.


Regards

Sridhar Artham

  • 0
    TI__Guru**** 244400 points
    Hello Sridhar,

    1. Yes it is possible to use both C and ASM
    2. GCC is a supported tool chain
    3. There is a reference design for the TM4C129 Connected launchpad to interface external memory to extended address space. I would suggest using the SDRAM.

    Regards
    Amit
  • 0 in reply to Amit Ashara
    Intellectual 330 points

    Hi Amit,


    Thank you very much for the reply and information provided.


    Is it possible to have FILE I/O operations on the board like how we do normally file open, read and write?

    If I want to measure processing time of a module, how to do it?

    Thanks and Regards

     sridhar artham

  • 0 in reply to Sridhar Artham
    Guru 11940 points

    Is it possible to have FILE I/O operations on the board like how we do normally file open, read and write?

    Does your board have any medium that supports the "file" metaphor (SD-card, USB) ? If not (and, AFAIK, it has not), you might find an appropriate Add-on board, including a proper FatFS implementation for it. Or you can patch some SD-card extension on yourself, and port FatFS. I did it for a STM32F3 board, it's not that difficult.

    If I want to measure processing time of a module, how to do it?

    Toggle GPIO pins, and use a scope for measurement.

    Somehow I got the impression that a full-fledged Cortex-A board with Linux would serve you better ...

  • 0 in reply to f. m.
    Intellectual 330 points
    Hi Amit,

    I used Panda board(Cortex A9) for measuring the processing time by calling the function gettimeofday(). Since we are using GNU tool chain for Cortex M4, can we use the same function to get the processing time?

    I am thinking to purchase "ARM Cortex-M4F based MCU TM4C1294 Connected LaunchPad(EK-TM4C1294XL)". This is the board which I will be using. If I see the board features, it supports USB/SD_Card slot. So then, according to your answer, it should support file i/o operations.

    I am also thinking to purchase this extra add on of SDRAM "www.ti.com/.../tidm-tm4cflashsram". Because the code which we work will have little more code and data sizes.
  • 0 in reply to Sridhar Artham
    TI__Guru**** 244400 points
    Hello Sridhar

    As what f.m. mentioned, the execution time of a peripheral can be better captured by a GPIO toggle or using the SysTickTimer Read.

    When it comes to support for FILE IO or additional memory the following TI Design would be more useful.

    www.ti.com/.../TIDM-TM4C129SDRAMNVM;amp

    Note that it is not an order-able but you can use the Gerber file to get one fabricated and assembled.

    Regards
    Amit