Microchip ARM Cortex-M4F
Microchip's (formerly Atmel) range of ARM®Cortex®-M4F microcontrollers deliver up to 120MHz of high performance processing, a floating-point unit, plenty of memory and miniature packaging options, making them idea for a range of applications where connectivity plays an important role. The SAM4E family is ideal for industrial and building control applications that require a range of connectivity interfaces. Along with USB 2.0, dual CAN and 10/100 Ethernet, these microcontrollers also feature to 16-bit ADCs.
The SAMG family target applications that require processing performance but with less demanding peripheral requirements. With up to 512kB flash memory and up to 176kB SRAM, they can also fulfil full-speed USB applications with ease. The SAMD5x and SAME5x deliver a low-power 65µA/MHz. Coupled with support for QTouch® capacitive touch and CAN-FD (SAME5x) they can be applied to applications with demanding user interfaces.
Both debug and instrumented trace support are provided on these devices via ARM's CoreSight™ technology, utilizing the Serial Wire Debug (SWD) interface for pure debugging and the Serial Wire Output (SWO) single-pin interface for basic trace output. The Embedded Trace Macrocell (ETM) provides real-time output of program trace data, delivering more insight into application functionality during development and debugging, whilst some devices even support the Embedded Trace Buffer (ETB) if the developer is able to spare some of the internal SRAM to use it.
Furthermore, the following CoreSight™ features are supported by this family:
| CoreSight™ Feature | Description | SAM4E | SAMG | SAMD5x | SAME5x | iC5000 | iC5700 |
| FPB (Flash Patch Breakpoint) | Implements hardware breakpoints | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| DWT (Data Watchpoint and Trace) | Hardware comparators for program counter and data watchpoints |
✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| ITM (Instrumentation Trace Macrocell) | Block supports printf style debugging, trace of RTOS events and output of diagnostic system information. |
✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| ETM (Embedded Trace Macrocell) | 5-pin output for ITM or ETM trace messages | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| ETB (Embedded Trace Buffer) | Reserves SRAM to store trace information on-chip | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| SWO (Serial Wire Output) | Single-pin output for ITM trace messages | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| TPIU (Trace Port Interface Unit) | Bridge between on-chip trace data and either SWO or ETM interfaces. |
✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| SWD (Serial Wire Debug) | Two-wire CoreSight™ interface used for debugging and debug configuration. |
✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
If you are looking to improve code quality, our integrated testing tool testIDEA can also utilize the debug interface to test your code on the target microcontroller as well.