New tool chains for ARM Cortex-M3 & M4

MikroElektronika has announced its brand new tool chains for ARM Cortex-M3 microcontrollers: mikroC, -Pascal & -Basic Pro for ARM. This first release handles up to 171 Stellaris microcontrollers from Texas Instruments. Support for the Stellaris Cortex-M4 processors is scheduled for the next release, due at the end of February 2012. The EasyMx PRO v7 for Stellaris development board is the first hardware platform for the new compiler. Support for ARM Cortex-M3 & M4 based MCUs from other manufacturers (did I hear someone mention STMicroelectronics?) will follow later.

The compiler package includes over 50 software libraries, all documented in a comprehensive help file including code examples. The rather involved initialization of general purpose I/O (GPIO) pins on ARM processors is handled by a special GPIO library. The IDE has the same look and feel as the other compilers by mE and includes an advanced editor with many convenient tools like Code Assistant, Interrupt Assistant and Parameter Assistant. A library manager and project explorer enable you to easily include libraries and search for examples. Visual TFT has been updated as well and is now capable of producing ARM compatible code.