PEmicro supports a wide selection of STMicroelectronics' STM32 device families. Many STM32 devices include a set of user configurable option bytes that can control features such as HW/SW watchdog, read protection, and write protection. These options give users a convenient way of changing the settings of their device. Configuring option bytes of a STM32Fx or STM32Lx device is made easy with our PROG software and Cyclone Image Creation Utility software. 

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Some Microchip/Atmel's SAM-Series devices allow rows of non-volatile flash memory (NVM) to be configured as EEPROM, so that users can treat NVM pages as EEPROM with Atmel's software, and let Atmel's back-end take care of keeping peripheral data safe.

PEmicro's Cyclone in-system programmers and PROGACMP flash programming software each allow users to set up NVM main flash space as emulated EEPROM by programming the EEPROM FUSE bits in the device's User Row. Our latest Microchip/Atmel algorithms support single-byte writes to the User Row, to preserve adjacent User Row settings.

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ARMv7-M devices have the ability to halt when specified exceptions occur. If exception catching is enabled, the processor will halt when a user's code hits the corresponding fault handler. Exception catching serves as an aid to development by alerting users in real-time about exceptions that occur in their code.

When installed in NXP's MCUXpresso IDE, PEmicro's GDB Server plug-ins from v3.96 onward include options for exception catching, and return information about the exceptions that have occurred.

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PEmicro considers the privacy of its customers' intellectual property to be of utmost importance. Silicon Labs' 32-bit devices feature an Authentication Access Port (AAP) as part of their security features, and for some of these devices, a debugger may have a limited time to access this port when communicating with an unsecured device. With that in mind, recent PROG software (v6.94) and Cyclone firmware (v10.04) releases now provide support to secure, unsecure, and mass-erase Silicon Labs devices with these debug time-sensitivities, which can help users keep their valuable data safe.

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PEmicro has expanded its ARM® device support of Cypress’ current PSoC 4, PSoC 5, and PSoC 6 devices. 

PEmicro's popular Multilink debug probes and Cyclone ISP programmers now include support for the following Cypress device families: 4000, 4000S, 4100, 4100S, 4100PS, 4100S Plus, 4100M, 4100BLE, 4200, 4200M, 4200L, 4XX8_BLE, 5200, 5400, 5600, and 5800, as well as Cypress’ new PSoC 6xx6 and 6xx7 series microcontrollers. 

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The safety of users’ intellectual property is a top priority for PEmicro. Utilizing the “Chip Protect” function of processors prevents data from being read or written from an external source, which helps keep your data secure. PEmicro is constantly expanding its compatibility with different manufacturers’ device security methods. Each manufacturer may employ multiple methods for securing or unsecuring a processor, so the goal is to make this process as simple and easy as possible for the user.

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Cypress’ PSoC5 line of microcontrollers are a great option for high performance at a low cost. The PSoC 5 provides an Error Correcting Code (ECC) feature to help detect errors in operations that manipulate the flash memory. The ECC peripheral can be enabled or disabled by writing to the Nonvolatile Latch (NVL). The advantage of disabling ECC is that each row of flash gains 32 bytes for data storage, extending the row from 256 to 288 bytes.

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PEmicro is constantly expanding its support for device security methods. The Cypress’ PSoC 4 Cortex-M0 processor-based microcontrollers have a few device features to prevent external flash access. Enabling device security features on products prevents third party sources from accessing or manipulating program code and data. This post aims to detail the secure and unsecure process for Cypress PSoC 4 devices. 

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PEmicro has expanded the capabilities of the CYCLONE and CYCLONE FX ISP flash programmers to internally store and track serial numbers though the use of a unique serial number ID.  This increased sophistication allows Stand-Alone Programming (SAP) images stored on a Cyclone to share serial numbers that reference the same unique serial number ID. There are several cases where this is very useful. The first is when a user may want to update their firmware for a product to a new version but the serial number to have persistence.  The user may also have different products that need to be programmed with different firmware, but still want have those products draw from the same serialization sequence.  

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Dec. 2018 - We've updated this blog post with more info about Multilink and Cyclone implementation...

The JTAG specification introduced daisy chaining of MCUs in order to reduce the number of headers required to debug and program multiple MCUs. JTAG daisy chaining allows multiple MCU’s (and other JTAG compatible hardware, such as FPGAs) to share a single debug header. PEmicro currently supports daisy chaining of ARM-Cortex MCUs via our Cyclone programmers and Multilink debug probes. The same is true for most PEmicro software, including our Eclipse plugin GDB Server, and our Cyclone automation and control packages.

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PEmicro is pleased to announce that the Multillink and Multilink FX debug probes have added real-time SWO data capture as well as power consumption monitoring in NXP's MCUXpresso IDE 10.3 release. SWO data capture includes high speed printf() output from running code, R/W accesses to memory and variables, interrupt execution, and more. The power consumption monitoring of the Multilink FX runs up to 250KSamples/S with a current detection range of 1mA to over 200mA. 

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PEmicro has announced the addition of support and features for a new set of STMicroelectronics’ STM8 devices to PEmicro's diverse line of embedded systems tools.

STMicroelectronics’ STM8AL ultra-low-power series for automotive applications stresses green energy, application safety and power efficiency with the use of these microcontrollers. PEmicro’s powerful Cyclone Universal and Cyclone Universal FX stand-alone programmers now support these and many other families of STMicroelectronics’ devices.

Current users of compatible PEmicro products can update their product firmware to add support for these devices. The corresponding programming algorithms can be downloaded from PEmicro's online support center.