Important changes to forums and questions
All forums and questions are now archived. To start a new conversation or read the latest updates go to forums.mbed.com.
10 years, 1 month ago.
Standalone MCU with mbed
One of the things I really liked about Arduino was that it didn't take much to go from prototyping (with an arduino board) to a standalone AVR MCU on a custom PCB design of my own. Add some ICSP headers to my PCB design, and now I can even program the MCU in circuit without removing it.
I've got four different ARM MCU evaluation boards, and while they've been fun to play around with, I haven't quite figured out how I would go from evaluation board to standalone MCU on my own PCB. I haven't figured out if, once I do get a standalone MCU, I'll be able to program it in circuit if I need to.
I also haven't figured out how I'd be able to use mbed in this scenario. Wouldn't I need some sort of special programming hardware in order to program the MCU in circuit?
I'm sorry if this doesn't make any sense, I'm not sure how else to ask it.
2 Answers
10 years, 1 month ago.
Also quite some of the more recent mbeds (the KLxx series, the LPC812 also I believe and the STMs) allow you to disconnect the programming part and use it to program your own microcontroller. In case of the STM Nucleos it is a break off part, the KLxxZs have a trace you can cut (+ jumper to make the connection again manually) to cut the connection between the programmer part and the microcontroller. Then you can connect the debugging wires to your own microcontroller.
See for example: https://mbed.org/cookbook/Prototype-To-Hardware-KL25Z and http://mbed.org/users/chris/notebook/prototype-to-hardware/
10 years, 1 month ago.
You can use an external jtag or swd programmer to flash compiled code to an ARM like the lpc1768. You can also use the nxp ARM serial port bootloader option with pc software like flashmagic. Finally there some devices like the lpc1124 and lpc1549 that support USB port flashing.