ARM's next steps in the mbed open source embedded design project is a new SDK released under a permissive open source licence. It has also created an HDK for creating low-cost development boards.
The mbed platform was created to prototype with ARM Cortex-M series processor-based MCUs.
Open Source SDK
The mbed SDK, already relied upon by tens of thousands of developers, has been extended and released free under a permissive open source licence.
"It has been carefully designed to provide a C/C++ platform with enough hardware abstraction to be intuitive and concise yet powerful enough to build complex projects fast," said ARM.
Built on the ARM CMSIS low-level APIs it allows developers to go right down to the hardware when needed. It is portable across various toolchains.
In addition, to free open source middleware such as RTOS, USB and Networking libraries, the SDK has been built upon by the mbed developer community to create a cookbook of reusable driver libraries for connecting to peripherals and modules.
The new mbed HDK delivers microcontroller sub-system reference designs that can be used as the basis for new hardware boards and products.
The HDK designs specify all major support components including an on-board USB interface that enables simple drag-n-drop programming and connection to the microcontroller via the USB CMSIS-DAP debug interface standard.
The design is currently used in the official mbed microcontroller prototyping modules, it is also being adopted by mbed partners for evaluation boards, and is now available for use in custom designs.
The mbed Compiler provides a free online IDE that is powered by the ARM professional C/C++ compiler, pre-configured and tested to generate efficient code.
Source:
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2013/02/26/55640/arm-offers-open-source-sdk-for-cortex-m-series.htm
