This book begins with an introduction to the ARM Cortex family and covers its basic concepts. We cover the installation of the ARM uVision Integrated Development Environment and topics, such as target devices, evaluation boards, code configuration, and GPIO. You will learn about the core programming topics that deal with structures, functions, pointers, and debugging in this book. You will also learn about various advanced aspects, such as data conversion, multimedia support, real-time signal processing, and real-time embedded systems. You will also get accustomed with creating game applications, programming I/O, and configuring GPIO and UART ports. By the end of this book, you will be able to successfully create robust and scalable ARM Cortex-based applications.
Chapter 1, A Practical Introduction to ARM® Cortex®, shows you how to compile, download, and run simple programs on an evaluation board.
Chapter 2, C Language Programming, introduces you to writing programs in C, a high-level language that was developed in the 1970s and is popular among embedded-system developers.
Chapter 3, Programming I/O, investigates some of the functions that configure I/O devices, and you will gain an understanding of what is involved in writing I/O interfaces for other targets.
Chapter 4, Assembly Language Programming, explains how to write functions in assembly language. Assembly language is a low-level programming language that is specific to particular computer architecture. Therefore, unlike programs written high-level languages, programs written in assembly language cannot be easily ported to other hardware architectures.
Chapter 5, Data Conversion, introduces approaches to data conversion, namely analog to digital conversion and vice versa. This chapter also covers the principal features used by microcontrollers for data conversion.
Chapter 6, Multimedia Support, discusses support for various multimedia peripherals, which are discrete components connected to the microcontroller by a bus. Support for an LCD touchscreen, audio codec, and camera peripherals is a very attractive feature of the STM32F4xxx microcontroller, and selecting an evaluation board that includes these peripherals, although more expensive, will be covered in this chapter.
Chapter 7, Real-Time Signal Processing, introduces you to Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and reviews the ARM Cortex M4 instruction set support for DSP applications. This chapter will walk through a DMA application using the codec, followed by designing a low-pass filter.
Chapter 8, Real-Time Embedded Systems, shows you how to write a multithreaded program using flags for communication and ensuring mutual exclusion when accessing shared resources.
Chapter 9, Embedded Toolchain, teaches you how to install the GNU ARM Eclipse toolchain for the Windows Operating System and to build and run a simple Blinky program on the MCBSTM32F400 evaluation board. This chapter will also show you how to use the STM32CubeMX Framework (API) and how to port projects to GNU ARM Eclipse.