2 System Description
2.1 Introduction
This chapter describes the technical way of the development boards. Often abbreviations are used,
they are described in the glossary (Part
). The microcontroller used on the different board is
always the STM32F103RB form ST with the Cortex-M3 core from ARM. The first section introduces
this core, the second the microcontroller STM32F103RB and the following the development boards
used in this document.
This chapter describes only the processor used in this document and shows the hardware setup.
The development of the software itself is described in Chapter
2.2 Electrostatic Warning
!
Make sure that you are connected to ground before you touch any elec-
tronic circuit! Electrostatic discharges may destroy any electronic circuit.
2.3 Cortex-M3 Core
The target market of the Cortex-M3 core is the field that has been served by 8- or 16bit controllers.
In this market cheap but powerful controllers with little power consumption are needed.
2.3.1 History
For the last decade the ARM7 and ARM9 microcontrollers have been used as
general purpose microcontrollers. Today exist a few hundred microcontrollers
with the ARM core.
Now STMicroelectronics have launched the STM32, their first microcontroller based on the new
ARM Cortex-M3 core. This device sets new standards in performance and cost, as well as being
capable of low power operation and hard real-time control.
Currently the M3 core is licensed by 22 companies like Actel Corporation, Broadcom Corporation,
Energy Micro, Luminary Micro, NXP, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, Toshiba and Zilog
1
Licensed M3 cores:
3
