Embedded Development System
for LPC2000 ARM Microcontrollers

Armaide has a new name:

and a new website

Armaide News (Updated: 30 Apr 2010) 

• Armaide is now called Astrobe. 
• Version 2.41 released  Includes new general-purpose and hardware-related libraries and examples - In-Application (IAP) programming, SPI, Strings. Support for international character sets etc.
• Coridium Corp's ARMmite PRO and Elektor Magazine's ARMee have been added to the list of supported development boards.
• Links to Oberon programming text books are here 

What is Armaide?

Armaide is a rapid integrated ARM software development system running on Windows. It has a multi-file, fully featured, syntax-aware programmer's editor, native code ARM compiler and linker. Use it to develop reliable software to run on the powerful NXP / Philips LPC2000 family of ARM-based microcontrollers. 

Armaide uses the programming language Oberon-07.  You can now write efficient software with the readability of Delphi and Pascal and the same processing power and low-level access of C without the risk of buffer overruns, memory leaks etc. etc. 

Armaide identifies many common programming errors at compile / link time before you even run your program; most others are automatically trapped at runtime. The system identifies the point of failure so valuable time is not wasted chasing spurious side-effects.

Try the ready to compile and run LPC2000-specific source code examples distributed with Armaide - such as the example code for a simple LED-blinking program.  Download Oberon programming text books for source code examples used to solve general programming tasks. 

Oberon-07 Code in Action

The  software used in these examples is 99% Oberon-07. This includes the microcontroller configuration, runtime error trapping and reporting facilities, LCD drivers and the application itself. The remainder consists of the few lines of assembler startup code required for ARM7 microcontrollers.

The file sizes shown are the TOTAL executable sizes.  The full source code is available on request for users of the Professional Edition of Armaide.

AutoCAD Slide Viewer (17 KB) 

Watch the video

The AutoCAD Slide viewer processes a vector graphics image file on a ThaiEasyElec LPC2378 Blue Screen board. The first two AutoCAD Slide images are processed in real time, the second two have built-in delays to show the drawing as it proceeds. The image data file sizes are 5 KB for the Space Shuttle and 28 KB for St Pauls. The data files are appended to the executable and read from flash ROM by the program using Armaide's 'resource management' facilities.

Digital Clock (8 KB)

A simple digital clock application running on a mikroElektronika EasyArm LPC2148 development board with no operating system or external RAM.

Oberon for LPC2000 Microcontrollers

The Armaide compiler is a complete implementation of the standard Oberon-07 language except for 64-bit REALs. 32-bit IEEE REALs - including multiplication and division operations are supported.

The compiler includes additional features particularly designed for efficient code-generation, low-level programming and access to the capabilities of ARM-based microcontrollers: 

• Regular ARM native code generation
• Explicit read / write access to memory-mapped peripheral device registers
• Interrupt procedures
• Direct access to the program counter, frame pointer, link register and other special ARM registers
• Leaf procedures: Store parameters and local variables in registers when execution speed is a priority
• Dynamic local arrays for efficient and safe memory allocation  

The library modules and linker included with Armaide support the following families of ARM7 microcontrollers from NXP (Philips):

• LPC2101 / 2102 / 2103
• LPC2104 / 2105 / 2106
• LPC2142 / 2144 / 2146 / 2148
• LPC2212 / 2214
• LPC2364 / 2366 / 2368 / 2378

Source code of the startup files and library modules is available.

Armaide IDE Features

   Editing

• Standard Windows, programmer-oriented, text-editing features
• Fast and responsive interactive operation
• Tabbed multi-document interface for editing multiple source files
• Split-screen editing
• Regular expression support in Find / Replace
• Bookmarks
• Line modification indicators
• Optional line numbers, printing features etc. etc.

   Language Syntax-oriented Editing 

• Automatic syntax colouring of Oberon language elements as you type 
• Auto-indexing of procedures and imports of each source file for easy code navigation
• Auto-capitalisation of Oberon keywords as you type 

   Development

• Control the Editing, Compiling, and Linking generation cycle from the menu
• Capture compilation errors in a separate window
• Click on an error line to take you to the actual line in the source
• Automatic linking - no need for complex make files, obscure command line parameters etc. etc. 
• Generates standard HEX files ready to upload to the target ARM microcontroller 
• Optional command-line compiler and linker for use with batch files and 'make' tools.

Technical Support

Quick and accurate technical support is vital to the usefulness of any software development system.  Direct technical support is provided via our website and is even available to Evaluation Edition users.

Supported LPC2000 Development Boards

Armaide has been tested with a range of LPC2000-based development and educational boards:

Company	Board	Est.	Price
Coridium Corp	ARMmite	$US	49.00
	ARMmite PRO	$US	29.95
	+ SparkFun FTDI Basic Breakout		+13.95
Elektor Magazine	LPC2106 ARMee Processor board	$US	45.90
	+ Motherboard		+22.10
Embedded Artists	LPC2106 RS232 QuickStart Board	EUR	39.00
	LPC2148 USB QuickStart Board		49.00
	+ QuickStart Prototype board		+20.00
MikroElektronika	EasyARM Board with LPC2148 MCU	$US	159.00
	+ LPC2214 MCU		+46.00
Olimex	LPC2378-STK Development Prototype Board	EUR	119.95
ThaiEasyElec	BlueScreen LPC2378	$US	116.95
	+ SparkFun FTDI Basic Breakout		+13.95

System Requirements

Refer to the ReadMe file for details.