Free ST Discovery Board

[Stonent]

http://www.st.com/web/catalog/tools/FM116/SC959/SS1532/PF259096?ecmp=pf259096_enews_enews_sep2013#

[kayvee]

Not automatic.  They require a bunch of project details and thereafter your application is "Under Review".

[Harvs]

I'm just waiting for this to be available, it'll be awesome if it's only 20 something $ like it's suppose to be.
http://www.st.com/web/catalog/tools/FM116/SC959/SS1532/PF259090

[Stonent]

Well that sucks.

[kripton2035]

Well I probably won't get one then. As far as their form field pulldowns permitted I tried not to lie.
Looks like students, hobbyists and other individuals are not really eligible.

I really dont see any company getting this item even for free.
they are mainly purposed to student and hobbyists.

[Stonent]

So far I've done this all from my phone. I'll actually try to order one when I get to work.

[kayvee]

So much for my bona fide request, they turned me down.

Looks like I will be going with TI after all.

[dannyf]

ST is pursuing this market very aggressively. A few years ago, they were complete unknowns and now more and more designs are using their chips.

They take the Chevy strategy (vs. TI's Cadillac strategy): their products are reasonably featured, they target multiple niches with specialized products, and unite them via their library. And they are very aggressive on pricing.

My only issue with them is that the fragmented product line makes it costly to maintain software built on proprietary libraries which in the end discourages the use of their products. That strategy makes sense at low-end of the market where software cost is relatively low. At the higher-end of the market, I would rather prefer a limited number of fully featured offerings so one set of proven libraries can cover multiple chips.

[Stonent]

So what did you put for your project? I'm holding off until I can find something but their options are so limited nothing matches what I'd like to do.

[mrflibble]

I wish there was a way to delete my profile from their site. I hope they don't SPAM me from now on.

Just change your profile info into something non-spammable.

[poorchava]

If you have a chance to avoid using ST in your series production design.... for gods sake do it. While the silicon they manufacture is most of the time very good and they have some impressive product lines (eg. smart switches and STM32 controllers), the documentation and support simply suck. If you're not purchasing 20M/year of something, forget about decent support when something goes wrong. If you're not purchasing 20M/year of something when problems appear the bottom line of their answer is: "don't like it, don't buy it".

[dannyf]

the documentation and support simply suck.

It hasn't been the case for me.

[Bored@Work]

the documentation and support simply suck.

It hasn't been the case for me.

Try to develop on Linux for e.g. STM8. They don't want you as a customer.

[dannyf]

"Try to develop on Linux for e.g. STM8. "

There will always be a platform or two where the oem tools or knowledge is limited.

Like us, they have a resource problem too: how to deploy precious funding / people to maximize return on their investment. If most of their customers are developing on windows, that's where their money will go.

That's the price you pay for using free tools, unfortunately.

[Bored@Work]

It is not that their knowledge is limited, they don't want you.

That's the price you pay for using free tools, unfortunately.

We are not talking about free tools, there is no working free STM8 compiler.

[senso]

There you go SDCC for STM8, or they say:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sdccstm/

[Bored@Work]

There you go SDCC for STM8, or they say:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sdccstm/

We are not talking about free tools, there is no working free STM8 compiler.

Emphasis added.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Just switch to 32 and be done with it.

mmm didn't say anything.

[Bored@Work]

Do we really again want to start  an 8 vs 32 bit discussion?

Anyhow, for product development there is more to support than tools.

[dannyf]

there is no working free STM8 compiler.

Depending on how you define "working":

Is a buggy compiler flawlessly performing a task considered working?

[Bored@Work]

there is no working free STM8 compiler.

Depending on how you define "working":

Is a buggy compiler flawlessly performing a task considered working?

Buggy? Last time I looked at that open source STM8 compiler the compiler didn't even compile out of the box. Someone screwed up the makefiles by replacing tabs with space, newlines with cr/nl, etc. And "fixed" that by trying to pass off some .bat file or something similar as a build system. Works really well on Linux. Not.

Further it turned out that some of the compiler's source code was also broken and didn't compile. And other parts of the code - presumably not needed for STM8 - were missing. Oh, and the code for the C preprocessor was missing, too.

Once this all was fixed it turned out the code generation for the STM8 series was incomplete.

[dannyf]

Last time I looked at that open source STM8 compiler the compiler didn't even compile out of the box.

An open source compiler that doesn't work? Let's blame ST.

Who can I blame for my code not working on a PIC? Yeah, let's blame Maytag for that.

[Bored@Work]

Last time I looked at that open source STM8 compiler the compiler didn't even compile out of the box.

An open source compiler that doesn't work? Let's blame ST.

Who can I blame for my code not working on a PIC? Yeah, let's blame Maytag for that.

You are really trying very hard to misread my statements. Let me quote myself

Anyhow, for product development there is more to support than tools.

I am not blaming ST for no / not working free tools. I am blaming them for not providing support. If your narrow minded brain equates support == free tools, then well, then you have a problem. If you intentionally do this, then well, you are just trolling.

[BravoV]

So B@W, how about NXP and TI ? In the context of arm mcu ? Really curious to hear your view.

[ElectroIrradiator]

So B@W, how about NXP and TI ? In the context of arm mcu ? Really curious to hear your view.

Are the rest of us allowed to chime in?

NXP now owns Code Red Tech. Their Eclipse/GCC based Red Suite tools, including the code size limited (128KB) free LPCXpresso edition, supports Windows, Mac OS X *and* Linux. The full version at $999 even supports TI and ST (and Freescale and SiLabs...) Cortex MCUs. Check the list at the bottom of the page.

Disclaimer: No affiliation to NXP or Code Red Tech, except as a customer.