How to choose a development system for ARM beginners

　　Many ARM beginners want to have a system that they can use, but they often have a wrong understanding that the higher the processor version and the higher the performance, the better, just like many people think that ARM9 and arm7 are good. I think beginners should be rational in this regard. The choice of development system ultimately depends on which direction you want to go in the embedded system, whether you want to do driver development or application, or embedded system hardware layer design and board-level testing. If you want to go from the operating system level or application level, whether it is driver or application, then of course the higher the processor performance, the better, but this thing is very difficult to learn by yourself, and it is not something that can be done in a few months, half a year, or one or two years.

 

　　In a sense, the difference between arm7 and 9 is that some functional instruction sets are enriched and the main frequency is increased, just like 286 and 386. For users, they may not notice anything, they can only feel that the speed is a little faster.

　　ARM7 is more suitable for those who want to start from the hardware level, because few ARM7 series processors have internal MMU and are easier to control. For example, S3C44B0 can easily turn off the cache, and the internal interface registers are easy to understand. Various interfaces can be controlled by hardware program control or AXD single-step command line instructions. It is easy to understand it based on the idea of ​​51 single-chip microcomputer, just treat it as a 32-bit single-chip microcomputer, thus eliminating the confusion of many 51 engineers who want to become embedded system hardware ARM development engineers, so that they will not be brought to the operating system level by some bad companies in the industry that do not really understand embedded systems, which will discourage them and make the industry even more lacking in talents in this area.

 

　　Embedded systems, whether hardware design or software driver, pay great attention to the interface part. When choosing a platform, you also need to examine the external resources of a processor. The more external resources you contact and the more familiar you are with them, the higher your chance of success in future employment. This is what is called "relevant skills" during recruitment, because it is impossible for a person to contact all processors in just a few years, and the processors used by the recruiting unit may be completely unknown to us. Take the ARM processors produced by dozens of small companies in Taiwan (market value of tens of millions), which are also very easy to use, but these things are too poor in versatility. Companies using these processors can only recruit people with relevant work experience. What is relevant work experience? In hardware, it refers to peripheral interface design, and in software, it refers to the relevant interface driver and application development experience in the operating system. I have been in the industry for nearly ten years. ARM appeared in 2000. I started working on ARM7 and then went directly to Xscale (this board is between arm10-11). I have been doing it for five years, recruiting and interviewing hundreds of people. I still have deep experience in these aspects.

 

　　I personally think that Samsung's S3C44b0 is more suitable for beginners. Why do I say that? Because the interface resources are relatively rich, the technology is mature, and there is a lot of information. It should be very suitable for beginners. If there is a problem, it may be easy to find someone to help and solve it, because most people are familiar with it. Just like the 51 type of microcontrollers, there are many experts who can help you, and related problems can be quickly answered. Although the industry thinks that this arm is bad, it is a good thing for beginners.

　　Therefore, the choice of development system depends on your future goals, the interface resources of the development board, and its universality in the industry.