Choosing the right Cortex-M processor

There are also some new features added to the Cortex-M0+ processor which were not available on the Cortex-M0 processor, such as the single cycle I/O interface and the Memory Protection Unit.

For applications that need to handle a lot more data processing, such as handling complex data structures, or simply when higher performance is required, the Cortex-M3 or Cortex-M4 processors can be a better solution. Both Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M4 processors are based on the ARMv7-M architecture and provide a comprehensive instruction set to enable efficient data processing.

If you are developing applications that require processing of floating point numbers, especially single precision floating point (float in C), then the Cortex-M4 processor with the floating point unit would be ideal. The floating point unit in the Cortex-M4 processor is optional and supports single precision floating point calculations. Floating precision floating point calculations have to be handled by software such as using a maths library from the compiler suite.

The Cortex-M4 processor also supports instructions which accelerate DSP applications such as SIMD and faster MAC.

Obviously, the Cortex-M3 or even Cortex-M4 processor-based microcontroller can also handle simple control tasks or general data processing. Very often this happens when the peripheral set or feature required is available only on a particular Cortex-M3 or Cortex-M4 processor-based MCU.

If this abstract has piqued your interest, read the full article online in the August issue of Electronic Specifier Design, by clicking here.