Best platform for learning embedded programming?

Question

Hi,

I'm looking to learn about embedded programming (in C mainly, but I hope to brush up on my ASM as well) and I was wondering what the best platform would be. I have some experience in using Atmel AVR's and programming them with the stk500 and found that to be relatively easy. I especially like AVR Studio and the debugger that lets you view that state of registers.

However, If I was to take the time to learn, I would rather learn about something that is prevalent in industry. I am thinking ARM, that is unless someone has a better suggestion.

I would also be looking for some reference material, I have found the books section on the ARM website and if one is a technically better book than another I would appreciate a heads up.

The last thing I would be looking for is a prototyping/programming board like the STK500 that has some buttons and so forth.

Thanks =]

Answer 1

For a fun project to test, have a look at xgamestation

But for a more industrial used one chip solution programming, look at PIC

Answer 2

If you just want to play around with it, I'd suggest the Arduino platform (http://www.arduino.cc). It's based on the ATmega168 or ATmega8, depending on the version. It uses a C-like language and has its own IDE.

Answer 3

A nice choice would be PIC18 by Microchip

• It has quite alot of material, documentation, tutorials and projects on the internet

• Free IDE and compiler.

• you can pull your own flash writer in a few minutes. (Although for a debugger to work you'll need to work harder)

• If you're a student (or has a student email address) Microchip will send you free sample chips. So basically you can have a full development environment for close to nothing.

• PICs are quite prevalent in the industry. Specifically as controllers for robots for some reason although they can do so much more.

Answer 4

"embedded programming" is a very broad term. AVR is pretty well in that category, but it's a step below ARM, in that it's both simpler to use, as well as less powerful.

If you just want to play around with ARM, buy a Nintendo DS or a Gameboy Advance. These are very cheap compared to the hardware inside (wonders of mass production), and they both have free development toolchains based off of gcc which can compile to them.

If you want to play around with embedded linux, BeagleBoard is looking to be a good option, only $150 and it has a ton of features.

Personally I think AVR is best for the smaller-sized 8-bit platforms, and ARM is best for the larger, more powerful 32-bit based platforms. Like many AVR fans, I don't like PIC. It just seems worse in pretty much every way. Also avoid anything that requires you to write any type of BASIC.

Answer 5

ARM has the nicest instruction set of the widely used embedded platforms, leaving you free to pick up the general principles of writing software for embedded platforms without getting bogged down in weird details like non-orthogonal registers or branch delay slots. There are plenty of emulators - ARM's own, while not free, is cycle-accurate; and a huge variety of programmable ARM-based hardware is cheap and easy to come by as well.

Answer 6

Your question sort of has been answered in this question.

To add to that, the embedded processor industry is very segmented, it doesn't have a major player like Intel/x86 is for the "desktop" processor industry. The ARM processor does have a large share, so does MIPS I believe, and there are many smaller more specific microcontroller like chips available (like the MSP430 etc from TI).

As for documentation, I do embedded development for a day job, and the documentation we have access to (as software developers) is rather sparse. Your best bet is to use the documentation available on the processor manufacturers site.

Answer 7

Arduino seems to be the platform of choice these days for beginners although there are lots of others. I like the Olimex boards personally but they are not really for beginners.

Microchip's PIC range of CPUs are also excellent for beginners, especially if you want to program in assembler.

BTW, Assembler is not used as much as it used to. The general rule with embedded is if you've got 4k of memory or more, use C. You get portability and you can develop code faster.

I suppose it depends on your skill level and what you want to do with the chip. I usually choose which embedded chip to use by the available peripherals. If you want a USB port, find one with USB built in, if you want analogue-to-digital, find one with an ADC etc. If you've got a simple application, use an 8-bit but if you need serious number crunching, go 32 bits.

Answer 8

For my Computer Architecture course I had to work with both a PIC and an AVR; in my opinion the PIC was easier to work with, but that's maybe because that's what we worked with the most and we had the most time to get used to. We used the AVR maybe only a couple of times so I couldn't get the hang of it perfectly but it also was nothing overly complicated, or at least not more frustrating than the other.

I think you can also order microprocessor samples from Microchip's website so you could also get started with that?

Answer 9

Take a look at Processing and the associated Arduino and Wiring boards.

Answer 10

ADI's Blackfin is another option since it's quite a straight forward architecture to program, yet can also do some fairly hefty DSP stuff should you choose to go down that route. It helps that the assembly language is quite sane too.

The Blackfin STAMP boards are an inexpensive (~$100 last I checked) way in, and they support the free GCC tools and uClinux.

Whatever architecture you choose I'd definitely recommend first downloading the toolchain\SDK and looking through the sample projects and tutorials - generally having a bit of a play about. You can often get quite acquainted with the architecture through simulation without even touching any hardware.

Answer 11

The TI MSP430 is a great platform for learning how to program microcontrollers. TI has a variety of FREE Tools and some cheap evaluation boards (starting at $20). Plus, it's a low-power, modern microcontroller.

Answer 12

I'd like to suggest the beagleboard from TI. It has a Omap3 on it. That's a Cortex-A8 ARM11 CPU, a C64x+ DSP and a video accelerator as well.

The board does not need an expensive jtag device. A serial cable an an SD-Card is all you need to get started. Board costs only $150 and there is a very active community.

www.beagleboard.org

Answer 13

If you just want to have fun, then try the Parallax Propeller chip. The HYDRA game platform looks like a blast. There's a $100 C compiler for it now.

I started on BASIC stamps, moved up through SX chips and PICs into 8051s, then 68332s, various DSPs, FPGA soft processors, etc.

8051s are more useful in the real world... the things won't go away. There's TONS of derivatives and crazy stuff for them. (Just stay away from the DS80C400) The energy industry is absolutely full of them.

Start with something tiny. If you have external RAM and plenty of registers... what's the difference between that and a SBC?

Answer 14

Second that:

Arduino platform http://www.arduino.cc

HTH

Answer 15

Myself I've worked in embedded programming for 9 years now and have experience on TI MSP430, Atmel AVR (a couple of flavours) and will be using an ARM soon.

My suggestion is to pickup something that has some extra features in the processor like ethernet controller and CAN controller, even get two or three if you can. Embedded devices are nice to work with, but once they can talk to other similar devices via CAN or get onto a network, they can become much more fun to play with.

Answer 16

Many moons ago I've worked with 8-bitters like 68HC05 and Z80, later AVR and MSP430 (16-bit). However most recent projects were on ARM7. Several manufacturers offer ARM controllers, in all colors and sizes (well, not really color).

ARM(7) is replacing 8-bit architecture: it's more performant (32-bit RISC at faster instruction cycles than most 8-bitters), has more memory and is available with several IO-configurations. I worked with NXP LPC2000 controllers, which are also inexpensive (< 1 USD for a 32-bitter!).

If you're in Europe http://www.olimex.com/dev/index.html has some nice low-cost development boards. Works in the rest of the world too :-)

Answer 17

For learning, you can't go past the AVR. The chips are cheap and they'll run with zero external components - they also supply enough current to drive an LED straight from the port.

You can start with a cheap programmer such as lady-ada's USBTinyISP (USD$22 for a kit) which can power your board with 5V from the USB port. Get the free tools WinAVR (GCC based) and AVRStudio and get a small project working in no time.

Yes the AVRs have limitations - but developing software for microcontrollers is largely about managing resources and coping with those problems. It's unlikely that you'll experience problems such as running out of stack space, RAM or ROM when you're making hobbist projects for powerful ARM platforms.

That said, ARM is also a great platform which is widely used in the industry, however, for learning I highly recommend AVRs.

Answer 18

I would suggest Microchip's PIC18F series. I just started developing for them with the RealICE in-circuit emulator, but the pickit2 is a decent debugger for the price. You could say this for the AVR's also, but there is a large following for the device all over the web. I was able to have a - buggy, yet functional - embedded USB device running within days due to all the PIC related chatter.

The only thing I don't like about the PICs is that a lot of the sample code is VERY entwined into the demo boards. That can make it hard to tear out sections that you need and still have an application that will build and run for your application.

Answer 19

Texas Instruments has released a very interesting development kit at a very low price: The eZ430-Chronos Development Tool contains an MSP430 with display and various sensors in a sports watch, including a usb debug programmer and a usb radio access point for 50$

There is also a wiki containing lots and lots of information.

I have already created a stackexchange proposal for the eZ430-Chronos Kit.