Returning to the microcontroller world. Part recommendations for project?

[Grimlock]

I'm starting up a small project that is going to be based around a Cortex M4 or M7 chip. I've been out of the embedded world for a while and have been doing a fair amount of research but am still looking for a evaluation board that will work for me.

Since I am very familiar with Visual Studio, I am planning on using the VisualGBD plug-in as my IDE and I'm pairing this with a Segger J-Link debugger.

However, I've hit a wall when trying to select an evaluation board. My essential requirements are:

2x CAN support (Board preferably has both behind CAN transceivers and exposed to board pins)
Ethernet
4+ UART (I need to add J1708/J1587 support at a later date)

I have experience with the NXP line of products as I used an old LPC1768 for a project about 5 years ago so that line is in consideration.  I've also considered Freescale, ST, and TI products.

Can anyone point me towards a board that meets these reqs that is know to work with the IDE and debugger mentioned above. I'm spending money that is not mine on this project and can't afford to miss the mark on product selection.

[nctnico]

I have used this LPC1768 board for some prototyping:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NXP-ARM-Cortex-M3-LPC1768-development-board-3-2-inch-color-module-version-V2-0-/261533387801

[Kjelt]

My suggestion is, if you can find an STM32 that works for you, go for it. STM32 has tons of tools as well as libraries, and the chip themselves are dirt cheap, with best in industry anti clone features to protect your IP.

Do you have some sort of documentation or reference for that statement, i kind of need this for my work.

[Grimlock]

I have used this LPC1768 board for some prototyping:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NXP-ARM-Cortex-M3-LPC1768-development-board-3-2-inch-color-module-version-V2-0-/261533387801

I'm really looking to find an M4 or higher that can do the job since they appear to have a longer support life ahead of them.

[Grimlock]

My suggestion is, if you can find an STM32 that works for you, go for it. STM32 has tons of tools as well as libraries, and the chip themselves are dirt cheap, with best in industry anti clone features to protect your IP.

So this leads to another question.  Would the J-Link work with an STM device. I keep reading about ST-Link and am under the impression that they are alternatives to each other?

[Grimlock]

So this leads to another question.  Would the J-Link work with an STM device. I keep reading about ST-Link and am under the impression that they are alternatives to each other?

Any reasons why J-Link won't work?

That's what I'm trying to find out. From what I've read/seen, most of the STM boards (Nucleo for example) do not expose a JTAG interface.

[nctnico]

I have used this LPC1768 board for some prototyping:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NXP-ARM-Cortex-M3-LPC1768-development-board-3-2-inch-color-module-version-V2-0-/261533387801

I'm really looking to find an M4 or higher that can do the job since they appear to have a longer support life ahead of them.

Did you ask NXP? NXP has a good track record of keeping old parts available. Their first ARM devices (LP2104/5/6 IIRC) are still available after more than a decade. When going for ST look very carefully whether you like their peripherals and read the errata sheets. I always stuck with NXP because I could re-use my old code on their newer/different devices which is something ST doesn't seem to care about.

BTW the board I linked to has an onboard USB/JTAG interface so you are less likely to run into JTAG issues due to interference.

[JPortici]

Yes, j-link will work.
stm32 chips use 4-wire jtag, swd and st-link for programming/debugging...

Now you can also convert a stlink/v2 (found in all the nucleo and discovery boards) into a j-link edu
https://www.segger.com/jlink-st-link.html

for the connections http://gnuarmeclipse.github.io/developer/j-link-stm32-boards/

[ebclr]

STM chip can work with Jlink STlink and many others, a good board to Start is http://www.st.com/content/ccc/resource/technical/document/user_manual/70/fe/4a/3f/e7/e1/4f/7d/DM00039084.pdf/files/DM00039084.pdf/jcr:content/translations/en.DM00039084.pdf

[jnz]

Definitely JLink, love mine.

NXP or STM32. Both are going to have the right sizes and peripherals. Smallest a 2xCAN unit will go down to in either mfg is 64pin. But since you need 4-5x UART you're going to be into the 100pin packages I think. From what I know about STM, the HAL gets no love, but it honestly isn't THAT bad. I don't know what NXP offers for a peripheral library.

Can't say to  VisualStudio + VisualGBD. Haven't used it, but seems like a nice inexpensive alternative that isn't Eclipse based.... BUT... Since you are doing ethernet, I'll assume you'll need a driver for that and a TCPIP stack. I'd consider if this is a money making project maybe shell out for Keil "Plus" middleware or Segger makes reportedly good middlewares too.

[jnz]

Do you have some sort of documentation or reference for that statement, i kind of need this for my work.

Most Chinese ARM devices use STM32 AFAIK, and I guess you know the attitude to clone and IP of average Chinese companies.
Probably this is just a rumor among Chinese engineers, but I think if there is smoke, there is a fire.

That's an interesting thought process.

The alternative to it, is that Chinese are using STM32 because they are fakes they can get easily? Or that even they know that chip security can be worked around so why bother going above and beyond?

I don't know. I WANT to believe that STM32 has good protection because I use them, but because the Chinese use them is a little stretch to a "fact" they have a good implementation.

[jnz]

So this leads to another question.  Would the J-Link work with an STM device. I keep reading about ST-Link and am under the impression that they are alternatives to each other?

Any reasons why J-Link won't work?

That's what I'm trying to find out. From what I've read/seen, most of the STM boards (Nucleo for example) do not expose a JTAG interface.

Some guy here recently made an adapter. The SWD pins are exposed but in a straight line and not the 2x10 .1" or 2x5 .050" config. It works fine.... BUT.... So does the STLink programmer on the Nucleo board itself. I wouldn't worry about it until I had a reason to definitely use the Segger on my own hardware.

[Kjelt]

So ST has this app called "ST MCU finder" if i put in two CAN bus and 4 UART you have 121 microcontrollers all M4 or M7 from 100 pins to 216 pin devices with lots of ROM and RAM but not cheap.
If you want more choice you could always go for an external I2C uart chip.
So 121 microcontrollers, you can tell me a lot but not that there would not be a single prototyping board available, just write down the tupenrs and go to Farnell and choose which board you like.

[Grimlock]

Definitely JLink, love mine.

NXP or STM32. Both are going to have the right sizes and peripherals. Smallest a 2xCAN unit will go down to in either mfg is 64pin. But since you need 4-5x UART you're going to be into the 100pin packages I think. From what I know about STM, the HAL gets no love, but it honestly isn't THAT bad. I don't know what NXP offers for a peripheral library.

Can't say to  VisualStudio + VisualGBD. Haven't used it, but seems like a nice inexpensive alternative that isn't Eclipse based.... BUT... Since you are doing ethernet, I'll assume you'll need a driver for that and a TCPIP stack. I'd consider if this is a money making project maybe shell out for Keil "Plus" middleware or Segger makes reportedly good middlewares too.

Thanks for the middleware recommendations. I'll look into each of those. 

I'd really like to stay with NXP if at all possible but I'm getting discouraged trying to find a dev board that is still in production and isn't a tower board.  Also, why are they so much more expensive than ST boards?

[nctnico]

In my experience the worst thing to do is look at the price of development boards or parts in (low) single quantities. What counts in the long run is the amount of hours needed to get a solution working. Looking back the price of the development board or parts for prototypes are always insignificant but time wasted on a wrong choice adds up quickly. Just go for the best solution; it usually is the cheapest when looking at the big picture.

[ebclr]

On the NXP side

http://www.nxp.com/products/software-and-tools/hardware-development-tools/freedom-development-boards/freedom-development-platform-for-kinetis-k64-k63-and-k24-mcus:FRDM-K64F

[Kjelt]

On the NXP side

http://www.nxp.com/products/software-and-tools/hardware-development-tools/freedom-development-boards/freedom-development-platform-for-kinetis-k64-k63-and-k24-mcus:FRDM-K64F

Thats freescale it is bought by nxp but as far away from starting all over as an st micro 

[Kjelt]

In my experience the worst thing to do is look at the price of development boards or parts in (low) single quantities. What counts in the long run is the amount of hours needed to get a solution working. Looking back the price of the development board or parts for prototypes are always insignificant but time wasted on a wrong choice adds up quickly. Just go for the best solution; it usually is the cheapest when looking at the big picture.

I tend to agree. Look at the NXP site and the LPC4072 and LPC4074 are good candidates but there are no dev. boards ? 

[Jeroen3]

I thought NXP was to dismantle their MCU lineup and continue under Freescale. Seems I was wrong.
See second link, it says "formerly freescale".

Take a look here:
http://www.nxp.com/products/eol/
http://www.nxp.com/about/technology-leadership/product-longevity:PRDCT_LONGEVITY_HM
http://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/support/resources/product-longevity.html
Note that they don't say it's a hard stop after 10 years. If you want more, go automotive.

As for development board (and ide for that matter)
http://www.keil.com/mcb1700/ or any from them, expensive, but you need to be going quickly without reversing the demo board right?
Your jlink will also work fine with them. I'd rather not use plugins and hot-glue my IDE together. In 5 years you'll be struggling to get it running again.

[dannyf]

I'm not as familiar with those new box parts but they generally speaking are more prudent or conservative in their engineering and introduction of new parts. So a good place to try if you want proven but not terribly up to date parts.

St is more aggressive in their parts and in pricing. So they are more feature rich, complex, more bug ridden but cheaper.

Another place to try is ti. Their cm4f parts are feature rich. But limited part selection and availability. They are also highly priced, as nxp parts. Older parts are from luminary - so definitely read the errata before committing to a design using their chips.

[neil555]

Here's an F4 board with a jtag port

http://www.hotmcu.com/hystm32f4xxcore144-coredev-board-p-10.html?cPath=1_20

as far as i remember the lauterbach worked on this one so the jlink should too 

[Kjelt]

As for development board (and ide for that matter)
http://www.keil.com/mcb1700/ or any from them, expensive, but you need to be going quickly without reversing the demo board right?
Your jlink will also work fine with them. I'd rather not use plugins and hot-glue my IDE together. In 5 years you'll be struggling to get it running again.

He wanted an M4 or M7 , 2 CAN busses and 4 UART, none of those are on that board 

Perhaps one of the MCB4300 boards

[PuterGeek]

I'm really looking to find an M4 or higher that can do the job since they appear to have a longer support life ahead of them.

Make sure you have a Rev 9.x J-Link to support the M4. Rev 8.x and lower don't have M4 support.

As far as a dev board, it looks like the Embedded Artists EA-OEM-510 (also sold as NXP OM13029,598) is the best bet. The nice thing about the EA board is the processor is on what they call an OEM board. This allows you to use the same base board with different MPUs. So you could start with a LPC1788 and then upgrade to the 4088 without having to buy a whole new dev board.

One other possibility would be get an LPC177x/178x board and swap the controller for the LPC4088 part. NXP made them pin compatible so that might be a viable alternative.

[dannyf]

" Make sure you have a Rev 9.x J-Link to support the M4. Rev 8.x and lower don't have M4 support."

That's probably not true.

[Sal Ammoniac]

Some guy here recently made an adapter. The SWD pins are exposed but in a straight line and not the 2x10 .1" or 2x5 .050" config. It works fine.... BUT.... So does the STLink programmer on the Nucleo board itself. I wouldn't worry about it until I had a reason to definitely use the Segger on my own hardware.

Although an adapter is nice to have, it's not really necessary. I use a Segger J-Link with several STM32 Discovery and Nucleo boards. I just use jumpers from the pins on the J-Link to the SWD pins on the STM board. Works fine.

[PuterGeek]

" Make sure you have a Rev 9.x J-Link to support the M4. Rev 8.x and lower don't have M4 support."

That's probably not true.

Sadly it is. I can't paste from the J-Link manual but refer to page 34 in this PDF:

https://www.segger.com/admin/uploads/productDocs/UM08001_JLink.pdf

Probably Seger's way to hurt the clone market since the J-Link 9.x uses different hardware.

[dannyf]

That's probably seggers way of getting you to pay up.

I have used v8 on cm4 before. And stlink (customized jlink) can be used to on f4 and l4 chips too.