STMicroelectronics has announced an extremely low-cost development environment maximizing access to its STM32 microcontroller families built using the ARM Cortex-M3 processor core optimized for embedded applications.
The environment combines the Atollic TrueSTUDIO/STM32 development tool, which can be downloaded free-of-charge with no limitations on code size or usage time, and ST's ST-LINK debug probe to connect to the target via USB. For a low initial investment, just $21 for ST-LINK, a wider variety of design starts, including tentative and low-volume product concepts, can benefit from the high performance, low power and rich features of the STM32 family comprising more than 70 software-, pin-, and peripheral-compatible variants.
Atollic TrueSTUDIO/STM32 uses the Eclipse IDE framework, and features a GNU compiler/debugger for ARM processors. Pre-compiled runtime libraries are also included in the free-of-charge Lite version of the tool. Developers can access more extensive capabilities by purchasing Atollic TrueSTUDIO/STM32 Pro, an environment with extensive capabilities including C++ language support, PC-based build/debug tools allowing development before embedded hardware is available, graphical tools including UML diagram editors, and collaboration features such as version control and bug/task management.
