Tag Archives: LPC

Investigating ARM Cortex® M33 core – DSP Acceleration 2 (PowerQuad Matrix Engine Tutorial)

Posted on by
3

Last week I showed you how to use the Coprocessor interface of PowerQuad to calculate (mostly) unary functions. As an example the natural logarithm ln(x) takes just one operand, whilst the floating divide in PowerQuad requires two operands (x1)/(x2). PowerQuad is very efficient accelerating these functions, requiring just 6 clock cycles for the ln(x) and 6 clock cycles for the float (x1)/(x2). In comparison the single-precision floating point unit in Cortex® M4F and M33F requires 13 clock cycles to perform the same float divide.

But there are two ‘sides’ to the PowerQuad:

  • The Coprocessor interface, using ARMv8-M coprocessor instructions;
  • The AHB bus interface, where we address PowerQuad as a peripheral.

So this week… operating the PowerQuad as a peripheral. I’ll show you how to use the PowerQuad SDK driver in MCUXpresso in a new project, and use the Matrix Engine in the PowerQuad to solve simultaneous equations.

Continue reading →

World Stepper Clock with NXP LPC845

Posted on by
10

I really love clocks. I think this is I am living here in Switzerland. Beside of that: clock projects are just fun :-). After I have completed a single clock using stepper motors (see “DIY Stepper Motor Clock with NXP LPC845-BRK“), I wanted to build a special one which is able to show up to four different time zones: Below an example with London (UK), New York (USA), Beijing (China) and Lucerne (Switzerland):

Stepper Clock

Stepper Clock

Continue reading →

Investigating ARM Cortex® M33 core with TrustZone® – DSP Acceleration 1

Posted on by
Reply

If you ask your colleagues about ARM Cortex® M33 core, they’ll most likely remember that the ARMv8-M architecture adds the (optional!) TrustZone® security extension. But one, overlooked but significant new feature in ARMv8-M is the new coprocessor interface.

ARMv8-M adds many new features to the core architecture, including Co-processor interface

With the LPC55S69 microcontroller, NXP decided to add an extremely powerful DSP Accelerator onto this coprocessor interface, named PowerQuad. In this week’s video series I’m investigating the PowerQuad, and the functions that it provides.

Continue reading →

Open Source LittlevGL GUI Library on Adafruit Touch LCDs with NXP LPC55S69-EVK

Posted on by
1

The NXP LPC55S69-EVK is a versatile board. In this article I show how it can be used with Adafruit TFT LCD boards, both with resistive and capacitive touch. For the software I’m using the open source LittlevGL GUI.

LPC55S69-EVK with Adafruit Touch LCD

LPC55S69-EVK with Adafruit Touch LCD

Continue reading →

Investigating ARM Cortex® M33 core with TrustZone® – In-Application Programming Tutorial

Posted on by
Reply

Last week I investigated the In-System Programming feature in the boot ROM of the LPC55S69. Using the command-line program blhost I was able to erase the flash and download simple LED blinky programs. Of course, the functions that erase and program the flash are present in the boot ROM.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could call those program and erase functions from our own software running on the LPC55S69?

Of course, we can. This is the NXP feature In-Application Programming, and this week I’ll show you how to interface to the Flash Driver in the boot ROM from software. Since the program and erase functions are running from ROM, this avoids the normal considerations about using flash for non-volatile storage.

Continue reading →

Investigating ARM Cortex® M33 core with TrustZone® – In-System Programming Tutorial

Posted on by
3

This week I’m back to the normal ‘Tutorial’ format with a look at the In-System Programming feature in the boot ROM of the LPC55S69. I’ll use the NXP-provided command-line program blhost and interface with the ROM to erase the flash and download simple LED blinky programs.

Continue reading →

TrustZone® vs HeartBleed

Posted on by
1

During my research about the TrustZone® security extension over the last weeks I’ve had the HeartBleed exploit from 2014 in my mind. How would TrustZone® help us manage that type of ‘no bounds check’ exploit? Of course, TrustZone® was first widely available when NXP introduced the Cortex® M33 family LPC55S69 in 1Q2019 and wasn’t available back in 2014, but I wanted to put it to the test.

Continue reading →

Investigating ARM Cortex® M33 core with TrustZone® – Trusted Execution Environment tutorial

Posted on by
Reply

When we are learning about TrustZone® it does not take long to recognise that it is the security attributes for memory that define memory regions to be Secure, Non-Secure or Non-Secure Callable. This week’s video shows how the Cortex® M33 core with TrustZone® extension can test the security attributes for every read, write and execute from memory (without impacting performance). And how the security attributes are set with the Trusted Execution Environment configuration tool inside MCUXpresso IDE.

Trusted Execution Environment configuration tool in MCUXpresso IDE
Continue reading →

Investigating ARM Cortex® M33 core with TrustZone® – transition from non-secure to secure world

Posted on by
Reply

You might purchase a Cortex® M33 microcontroller with TrustZone® where the supplier has installed a secure ROM. Or you might be an IOT developer using LPC55S69 in your own application where you have partitioned the code into secure and non-secure partitions. At some point with Cortex® M33 core with the TrustZone® security extension you’ll want to transition from non-secure into the secure world. Or (put more elegantly), you’ll want to call one of the secure functions supported when the Cortex® M33 core is in the Secure state.

That’s the topic for this week’s video.

How will you know what secure functions are available? And what parameters are necessary to call these functions? You’ll be provided with a header file veneer_table.h and a secure object library named project_name_CMSE_lib.o. Together these 2 modules describe everything that you need to know to call a secure function and transition from the Non-Secure to the Secure state.

Just two objects – *.o and *.h define resources available in the Secure world
Continue reading →

Investigating ARM Cortex® M33 core with TrustZone® – running TrustZone® example projects in MCUXpresso IDE

Posted on by
2

Last week I wrote about why we need the TrustZone® security extension for ARMv8-M. There are software use-cases where it can be very helpful to partition the software into 2 separate worlds, secure and non-secure. TrustZone® acts as the gatekeeper between these two worlds and manages how the core transitions between the worlds. The ARMv8-M architecture introduces two new States for the core – secure and non-secure. Cortex® M33 core (and M23 core also) is implemented to ARMv8-M standard and of course supports the two new states.

ARMv8-M architecture introduces 2 states for the core – secure and Non-secure
Continue reading →