SmartFusion is a family of
microcontrollers
A microcontroller (MCU for ''microcontroller unit'', often also MC, UC, or μC) is a small computer on a single VLSI integrated circuit (IC) chip. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs ( processor cores) along with memory and programmabl ...
with an integrated
FPGA of
Actel. The device includes an
ARM
In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between th ...
Cortex-M3
The ARM Cortex-M is a group of 32-bit RISC ARM processor cores licensed by Arm Holdings. These cores are optimized for low-cost and energy-efficient integrated circuits, which have been embedded in tens of billions of consumer devices. Though ...
hard processor core (with up to 512kB of flash and 64kB of RAM) and analog peripherals such as a multi-channel ADC and DACs in addition to their flash-based FPGA fabric.
Models
Development Hardware
Actel also sells two development boards that include an SmartFusion chip. One is the SmartFusion Evaluation Kit which is a low cost board with an SmartFusion A2F200 and sold for $99. Another is the SmartFusion Development Kit which is a fully featured board with an SmartFusion A2F500 and is sold for $999
.
Development tools
Documentation
The amount of documentation for all ARM chips is daunting, especially for newcomers. The documentation for microcontrollers from past decades would easily be inclusive in a single document, but as chips have evolved so has the documentation grown. The total documentation is especially hard to grasp for all ARM chips since it consists of documents from the IC manufacturer (
Actel) and documents from CPU core vendor (
ARM Holdings).
A typical top-down documentation tree is: manufacturer website, manufacturer marketing slides, manufacturer datasheet for the exact physical chip, manufacturer detailed reference manual that describes common peripherals and aspects of a physical chip family, ARM core generic user guide, ARM core technical reference manual, ARM architecture reference manual that describes the instruction set(s).
;SmartFusion documentation tree (top to bottom):
# SmartFusion website.
# SmartFusion marketing slides.
# SmartFusion datasheets.
# SmartFusion reference manuals.
# ARM core website.
# ARM core generic user guide.
# ARM core technical reference manual.
# ARM architecture reference manual.
Actel has additional documents, such as: evaluation board user manuals, application notes, getting started guides, software library documents, errata, and more. See
External Links
An internal link is a type of hyperlink on a web page to another page or resource, such as an image or document, on the same website or domain.
Hyperlinks are considered either "external" or "internal" depending on their target or destinatio ...
section for links to official STM32 and ARM documents.
See also
*
ARM architecture,
List of ARM microprocessor cores
This is a list of central processing units based on the ARM family of instruction sets designed by ARM Ltd. and third parties, sorted by version of the ARM instruction set, release and name. In 2005, ARM provided a summary of the numerous vendor ...
,
ARM Cortex-M
The ARM Cortex-M is a group of 32-bit RISC ARM processor cores licensed by Arm Holdings. These cores are optimized for low-cost and energy-efficient integrated circuits, which have been embedded in tens of billions of consumer devices. Though ...
*
Microcontroller,
List of common microcontrollers
This is a list of common microcontrollers listed by brand.
Altera
In 2015, Altera was acquired by Intel.
* Nios II 32-bit configurable soft microprocessor
* Nios 16-bit configurable soft processor
Analog Devices
* Blackfin
* Super Harvard Arc ...
*
Embedded system
An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' ...
,
Single-board microcontroller
A single-board microcontroller is a microcontroller built onto a single printed circuit board. This board provides all of the circuitry necessary for a useful control task: a microprocessor, I/O circuits, a clock generator, RAM, stored program ...
*
FPGA
References
Further reading
External links
;SmartFusion Official Documents
*
;ARM Official Documents
;Other
Running eCos on SmartFusion evaluation kit
{{Microcontrollers
Microcontrollers
SmartFusion
Gate arrays