Free microcontroller software tool from STMicroelectronics

Semiconductor company STMicroelectronics has extended incentives for designers to choose its STM8 microcontrollers for economical computing tasks in the smart devices that support modern work and life.

The latest move by ST, working with Cosmic, means all the software tools that designers need to build, debug and fine-tune STM8 applications are now available free of charge. Unlike other free tools for microcontrollers, which often come with limited features or code size, the free Cosmic C-compiler for STM8 (COS-C-COMPILER) is unconstrained and complete, and supports all variants of the STM8 family including the largest 128 KB devices.

Designers can begin prototyping with the 8-bit microcontrollers for just $8, which is the price of the STM8S-DISCOVERY hardware kit for exercising the main features of STM8S Access-Line microcontrollers. The family also includes the STM8L ultralow-power line and the STM8AF and STM8AL automotive lines, giving a choice of over 120 device variants with versatile configurations of on-chip memory, package style and peripherals such as communication interfaces, timers and converters.

The compiler also integrates seamlessly with the ST Visual Develop (STVD) environment — part of the free ST microcontroller toolset that also includes the ST Visual Programmer (STVP) programming interface, the ST Assembler Linker and STMStudio for fine-tuning application behaviour. STVD includes everything designers need to manage application development, from building and debugging application code to programming the microcontroller.

“Cosmic has been working with ST on several generations of STM8 microcontrollers, and our C compiler, CXSTM8, is a perfect fit for this architecture,” said Luca Ubiali, key account manager at Cosmic. “We are happy that its best-in-class performance and flexibility are now freely available to all STM8 users. Moreover, as project safety requirements increase, CXSTM8 field-proven reliability can be easily completed with Cosmic’s Unit Testing and RunTime Core Validation products.”

Originally published here.