Free Online Courses & Workshops For ARM Cortex-M Microcontrollers

STMicroelectronics and Digikey are co-sponsoring an EE Times University online training course entitled “Fundamentals of Microcontrollers (MCUs): Hands-On Workshop”. The first two 45-minutes sessions will be theoretical and provide and overview of micro-controllers, and explain methods to select an MCU for a given project. The first 1,000 persons based in the US or Canada, who attended the first 2 sessions, will receive a free STM32F4 Discovery Board (ARM Cortex M4). The three next sessions, conveniently taking place about a week later, hopefully after you’ve received your board, will be an actual workshop with STM32F429 Discovery Board.

Here’s the detailed schedule for the training:

• December 2, 2013, 12PM (Eastern Time) –  Session 1 – Introduction to Microcontrollers
  • Common microcontroller architectures
  • Pipelining
  • Peripherals: Timers, Communication, Analog
• December 3, 2013, 12PM (Eastern Time) – Session 2 – Selecting the Right Microcontroller
  • 10 Steps to Selecting a microcontroller
  • What to look for in a development kit
  • Tool setup lab
• December 11, 2013, 12PM (Eastern Time) – Session 3 – An Overview of the STM32F4 Discovery Board (Hands-On Workshop)
  • Overview of the STM32F4
  • The ST family of microcontrollers
  • Ecosystem
  • Peripheral set: Graphics, DSP, Low power modes
  • Onboard sensors: Gyro, etc.
  • Expansion
  • Toolchain setup
  • MicoXplorer MCU graphical configuration tool
• December 12, 2013, 12PM (Eastern time) – Session 4 – Digital Signal Processing With the STM32F4 (Hands-On Workshop)
  • Introduction to DSP
  • DSP features
  • DSP instructions
  • Floating point
  • DSP example
• December 13, 2013, 12PM (Eastern time) – Session 5 – Introduction to Graphics Processing (Hands-On Workshop)
  • Introduction to graphics processing
  • Graphics peripheral
  • Graphics toolchain
  • Example

You’ll also be able to participate in a group chat with the presenter after or during? the 45-minutes session. If you’re interested, you can find details, and register on EETimes University.

While I’m at it, there’s another free webinar about ARM Cortex M MCU presented by Doulos, that will take place on the 22nd of November, and explain how to “Squeeze the most out of battery-life using ARM Cortex-M processors“. Here’s the agenda for this 1-hour session:

• Introduction
• Example application problem
• Design goals to minimize energy profile
• Power modes
• Software architecture effects
  • Super loops
  • Interrupt driven
• Tips for energy conservation
• Energy profiling techniques

It will be repeated a couple of times during the day to cater for people living in different time zones. There will also be a prize draw, where one attendee will win a Freescale Kinetis L-Series Development Platform.

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