Cloud connection drives Toshiba to finally back the mbed operating system

By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk

Perhaps slightly behind the times, Toshiba has finally certified two of its ARM-based microcontrollers for the mbed operating system developed for the ARM cores.

Mbed provides developers with a free, easy-to-use development environment, so there has been less commercial drive for mainstream chip suppliers with their own operatings sytems and tools to support it. The online compiler provided by Arm can be used with the new evaluation boards, and device programming can be performed with drag-and-drop simplicity on a host PC connected to the boards via USB. Developers can also access the component libraries verified by the Mbed community, allowing fast and efficient development of applications for embedded devices.

The key difference now is that the Arm Mbed Device Connector service provides connectivity with the Mbed Cloud, simplifying configuration of web services and providing something that Toshiba doesn't.

Another factor is the corporate structure. It is Toshiba Digital Solutions rather than the semiconductor division that is working on strengthening device security of IoT equipment as an Mbed Cloud lead partner to provide that connectivity. 

Toshiba will be expanding products supporting Mbed OS with Mbed ecosystem partners through the Cortex-M0 and Cortex-M4 based microcontrollers. The 24MHz TX00 general-purpose microcontrollers provide USB support function while the TX04 microcontrollers add security functions.

There is also support for a wide range of applications via an Arduino-compatible connector so that applications can be developed quickly by connecting to a commercially available ArduinoShield board. Using Mbed Cloud allows secure connection with web services.

Part Number				TMPM066FWUG (in mass production)
Main specifications		CPU		ARM Cortex-M0
		Maximum frequency		24 MHz
		Built-in memory		128 Kbyte Flash, 16 Kbyte SRAM
		Operating voltage		1.8 to 3.6 V
		DMA		28 channels (1 unit)
		USB		1 channel (full-speed device)
		10-bit ADC		8 channels
		UART/SIO		2 channels
		I2C		2 channels
		16-bit Timer		10 channels
		High resolution PPG		1 unit, 4 outputs
		External interrupt pin		6 pins
		TSPI		1 channel
		Package		LQFP64 (10 mm x 10 mm, 0.5 mm pitch)

Part number				TMPM46BF10FG (in mass production)
Main specification		CPU		ARM Cortex-M4F
		Maximum frequency		120 MHz
		Built-in memory		1024 Kbyte Flash, 513 Kbyte SRAM
		Operating voltage		2.7 to 3.6 V
		12-bit ADC		8 channels
		DMA		32 channels (3 units)
		16-bit Timer		8 channels
		Interrupt input		16 channels
		Clock-independent WDT		1 unit
		SSP		3 channels
		SIO/UART		4 channels
		Full UART		2 channels
		I2C		3 channels
		SLC NAND Flash controller		1 unit
		Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)		1 unit
		Hash function generator (SHA)		1 unit
		Random number seed generator (ESG)		1 unit
		Multiple-length arithmetic circuit (MLA)		1 unit
		Package		LQFP100 (14 mm x 14 mm, 0.5 mm pitch)

TMPM066FWUG: https://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/info/lookup.jsp?pid=TMPM066FWUG&region=apc&lang=en

TMPM46BF10FG: https://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/info/lookup.jsp?pid=TMPM46BF10FG&region=apc&lang=en

The Mbed evaluation boards for each microcontroller are provided by sensyst, as AdBun series products at http://www.chip1stop.com/web/JPN/en/selectCountry.do