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Texas Instruments and Circuit Cellar* invite you to compete against other top embedded engineers around the world in the Texas Instruments DesignStellaris 2010 Design Contest! The sky is the limit when you’re designing with an ARM-based Texas Instruments Stellaris microcontroller featuring the SafeRTOS real-time kernel integrated into on-chip ROM. By entering a project you could win a share of $10,000 in cash prizes and recognition in Circuit Cellar magazine!
Texas Instruments has generously supplied everything you need to get started! The Stellaris EKK-LM3S9B96 Evaluation Kit includes: an evaluation board with an 80 MHz LM3S9B96 MCU featuring Ethernet MAC+PHY, CAN, USB OTG, and SafeRTOS in ROM; a time-limited copy of the Keil RealView Microcontroller Development Kit, cables, documentation, and StellarisWare software.
So how do you get started? Easy. First, to learn more, visit link # 1 below. Then request your complimentary sample kit using link # 2.
TI has generously provided all the essentials you need to get started!
Because Circuit Cellar’s primary role is publishing a print magazine about hands-on embedded systems projects, every DesignStellaris 2010 contest entrant is viewed as a potential author. Industry leaders pay attention to these contests. Circuit Cellar magazine is proud to report that a considerable number of past contest entrants say that the publicity from their participation benefited both their careers and manufacturing ambitions.
The Stellaris LM3S9B96 microcontroller is a 100 pin device based on a 32-bit ARM Cortex–M3 core with 256 KB flash memory, 96 KB RAM. It sports many interesting features like CAN, USB 2.0 OTG/Host/Device, 10/100 Ethernet MAC and PHY, I2C, I2S, SSI, UART, PWM, ADC and some other peripherals. Although this is more or less what you would expect from a modern 32-bit microcontroller, there’s more: the device also has a built-in library with almost 400 functions to access its peripherals. This BIOS (Basic Input Output System) provides a nice hardware abstraction layer for almost all of the registers and makes life of the programmer much easier.
To cap it all, the device also has a built in real time operating system (RTOS)! According to the datasheet the controller has a copy of SafeRTOS inside, a secure version of FreeRTOS edited by Wittenstein. Unfortunately, the datasheet doesn’t have too many details about it, but it’s there!
Now what do you call a processor with peripherals, a BIOS and an operating system? A computer! Indeed, this microcontroller is pretty much like a computer on a chip (CoC) and the only thing missing is a graphical interface, but that is probably just a matter of time and/or pin count.
Are we entering a new era of microcontrollers? Will this be the new standard architecture for the next generation of microcontrollers? What about code portability? Will the user get access to the source code of the built-in BIOS and RTOS? Will ARM, TI & Wittenstein be the next Intel, AMD or Microsoft? Lots of intriguing questions and subjects, important for the embedded future — please share your opinion at http://elektorembedded.blogspot.com/ (moderated by Clemens Valens).
* As of December 1, 2009, Circuit Cellar is an Elektor International Media publication.
More Info:
*DesignStellaris 2010 Competion details
*DesignStellaris 2010 Competion sample request form
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http://www.elektor.com/news/circuit-cellar-ti-designstellaris-2010-contest.1240749.lynkx
