Hey guys, im thinking of buying MCF51JM128 microcontroller and its development board from a distributer here in canada. My question is: is the CodeWarrior Development Studio free to download to program the MCU? I tried looking at their website but it says the free version only allows for assembly programming is that true? Im newbie in assembly and it will be better if i can use C to program my board. Please Help!

Thank you

 

I'm pretty certain you have to buy codewarrior.

If this bothers you perhaps consider Atmel products.
Their C stuff is free.

 

yes but their MCUs are not as efficient as Freescale or PIC.....i think i should go for similar product but from Microchip instead...they have free full IDE right?

 

Microchip have a free ide and assembler.

 

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=CW-MICROCONTROLLERS

This link seems to say that you can do c/c++ in the free version, but it is somewhat restricted in size and functionality.

 

yes but their MCUs are not as efficient as Freescale or PIC

Could you clarify this?

Are you saying the ARM architecture is inferior to the PIC32 and Freescale Coldfire?

Or are you comparing Atmel's AVR32 to PIC and Freescale?

If you are looking for a free un-crippled c compiler then Atmel's AVR32 is worth taking a look (~1.2 DMIPS/MHz vs ~ 0.85 DMIPS/MHz for MCF51JM128).

PIC32 has a free limited compiler for their PIC32 line which can handle 90% of the common applications. It loses some code optimization after the eval period ends.

Both Atmel and ST have ARM-Cortex which is also in the Coldfire V1/PIC32/AVR32 performance range. Their compiler is free and un-restricted. Google STM32

If this is a serious project then you need to invest in tools and in researching what is out there.

 

Because PIC is a RISC processor instead of CISC for Amtel, the PIC requires 4 osc cycles per instruction. I think Amtel requires 12 cycles per instruction, and many instructions require more than one machine cycle. This could be part of the "efficient" mentioned? You can also pipeline a PIC.

 

I think Amtel requires 12 cycles per instruction

Which Atmel part are you talking about? Their 8051 line is 12-cycles which is what an 8051 architecture was designed as. Atmel (and several other mfg) have enhanced versions that are single cycle. Silabs has a 100 MIPS enhanced 8051. Atmel's own architecture the AVR is single cycle and ranges from 10 MIPS to 32 MIPS and competes favorably with the PIC10/12/16/18/24 8/16 bit and Freescale's 8/16-bit offerings.

The OP said he was looking a MCF51JM128 from Freescale -- it is a 32-bit device so comparing it to an 8-bit architecture is not really a good comparison. From Microchip you have PIC32. From Atmel you have ARM and AVR32. From Freescale you have ARM and Coldfire.