SmartFusion® Ecosystem
ARM Compile and Debug OS/RTOS Middleware
The Microsemi SoC Products Group (formerly Actel) has a long history of supplying comprehensive FPGA development tools and recognizes the benefit of partnering with industry leaders to deliver the optimum usability and productivity to customers. Taking the same approach with processor development, Microsemi has partnered with key industry leaders in the microcontroller space to provide the robust SmartFusion® ecosystem.
Microsemi is partnering with Keil and IAR to provide Software IDE support to SmartFusion system designers. The result is a robust solution that can be easily adopted by developers who are already doing embedded design. The learning path is straightforward for FPGA designers.
SmartFusion Software Stack
The diagram above shows the SmartFusion stack with examples of drivers, RTOS and middleware from Microsemi and partners. By leveraging the SmartFusion stack, designers can decide at which level to add their own customization to their design, thus speeding time to market and reducing overhead in the design.
ARM
Because an ARM processor was chosen for SmartFusion devices, Microsemi's customers can benefit from the extensive ARM ecosystem. By building on Microsemi supplied hardware abstraction layer(HAL) and drivers, third party vendors can easily port RTOS and middleware for the SmartFusion devices.
Compile and Debug
Microsemi's SoftConsole is a free Eclipse-based IDE that enables the rapid production of C and C++ executables for Microsemi FPGAs & cSoC using Cortex-M3, Cortex-M1 and Core8051s. For SmartFusion support, SoftConsole includes the GNU C/C++ compiler and GDB debugger. Additional examples can be found on the SoftConsole page.
IAR Embedded Workbench® for ARM/Cortex is an integrated development environment for building and debugging embedded ARM applications using assembler, C and C++. It includes a project manager, editor, build and debugger tools with support for RTOS-aware debugging on hardware or in a simulator.
Keil's Microcontroller Development Kit comes in two editions: MDK-ARM and MDK Basic. Both editions feature µVision®, the ARM Compiler, MicroLib, and RTX, but the MDK Basic edition is limited to 256K so that small applications are more affordable.
Operating Systems
FreeRTOS™ is a portable, open source, royalty free, mini real-time kernel (a free-to-download and free-to-deploy RTOS that can be used in commercial applications without any requirement to expose your proprietary source code). FreeRTOS is scalable and designed specifically for small embedded systems. This FreeRTOS version ported by Microsemi is 6.0.1. For more information, visit the FreeRTOS website: www.freertos.org
Emcraft Systems provides porting of the open-source U-boot firmware and uClinux™ kernel to SmartFusion, a Linux®-based cross-development framework, and other complementary components. Combined with the release of its A2F-Linux Evaluation Kit, this provides a low-cost platform for evaluation and development of Linux (uClinux) on the Cortex-M3 CPU core of the Microsemi SmartFusion devices.
Keil offers the RTX Real-Time Kernel as a royalty-free, deterministic RTOS designed for ARM and Cortex-M devices. It allows you to create programs that simultaneously perform multiple functions and helps to create applications which are better structured and more easily maintained.
Micrium supports SmartFusion with the company's flagship µC/OS family recognized for a variety of features and benefits, including unparalleled reliability, performance, dependability, impeccable source code and vast documentation. Micrium supports the following products for SmartFusion devices and continues to work with Microsemi on additional projects.
- µC/OS-III™, Micrium's newest RTOS, is designed to save time on your next embedded project and puts greater control of the software in your hands.
RoweBots provides an ultra tiny Linux-compatible RTOS called Unison for SmartFusion. Unison consists of a set of modular software components, which, like Linux, are either free or commercially licensed. Unison offers POSIX® and Linux compatibility with hard real-time performance, complete I/O modules and an easily understood environment for device driver programming. Seamless integration with FPGA and analog features are fast and easy.
- Unison V4-based products include a free Unison V4 Linux and POSIX-compatible kernel with serial I/O, file system, six demonstration programs, upgraded documentation and source code for Unison V4, and free (for non-commercial use) Unison V4 TCP/IP server. Commercial license upgrade is available for Unison V4 TCP/IP server with three demonstration programs, DHCP client and source code. >> Download Unison V4
- Unison V5-based products include commercial Unison V5 Linux- and POSIX-compatible kernel with serial I/O, file system, extensive feature set, full documentation, source code and more than 20 demonstration programs, Unison V5 TCP/IPv4 with extended feature set, sockets interface, multiple network interfaces, PPP support, DHCP client, documentation, source code and six demonstration programs, and multiple other features.
Middleware
Microsemi has ported both uIP and IwIP for Ethernert support as well as including TFTP file service.
The Keil/ARM Real-Time Library (RL-ARM)* in addition to RTX source includes:
- RL-TCPnet (TCP/IP) - The Keil RL-TCPnet library, supporting full TCP/IP and UDP protocols, is a full networking suite specifically written for small ARM and Cortex-M processor-based microcontrollers. TCPnet is now ported to and supports SmartFusion Cortex-M3. It is highly optimized, has a small code footprint, and gives excellent performance, providing a wide range of application level protocols and examples such as FTP, SNMP, SOAP and AJAX. An HTTP server example of TCPnet working in a SmartFusion design is available.
- Flash File System (RL-Flash) allows your embedded applications to create, save, read, and modify files in standard storage devices such as ROM, RAM, or Flash ROM, using a standard serial peripheral interface (SPI). Many ARM-based microcontrollers have a practical requirement for a standard file system. With RL-FlashFS you can implement new features in embedded applications such as data logging, storing program state during standby modes, or storing firmware upgrades.
- * The CAN and USB functions within RL-ARM are not supported for SmartFusion.
Micrium in addition to their µC/OS-III® offers the following support for SmartFusion:
- µC/TCP-IP™ is a compact, reliable and high-performance stack built from the ground up by Micrium and has the quality, scalability and reliability that translates into a rapid configuration of network options, remarkable ease-of-use and rapid time-to-market.
- µC/Probe™ is one of the most useful tools in embedded systems design and puts you in the driver's seat, allowing you to take charge of virtually any variable, memory location, and I/O port in your embedded product, while your system is running.
