Free TI StarterWare enables quick and simple programming of TI embedded processors

DALLAS, USA: Embedded software programming comprises the majority of the product development cycle. Significantly reducing learning curves and accelerating development time in the embedded design process, Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) has announced its free StarterWare software packages, offering user-friendly, production-ready software for Sitara 32-bit ARM microprocessor (MPU), C6000 digital signal processor (DSP) and DSP + ARM developers.

StarterWare provides application developers with a flexible starting point that does not require the use of an operating system. In addition, StarterWare allows for easy migration to other TI embedded devices.

StarterWare simplifies and accelerates development
TI's new StarterWare software packages simplify the ARM MPU and DSP development process, offering application programming interfaces (APIs) to configure and interface with peripherals. In addition, StarterWare includes lightweight software stacks to enable USB, network and graphics functionality. Example code and application notes included with StarterWare reduce development time up to 10X.

The software packages do not require using or learning the intricacies of an operating system, enabling developers to accelerate time to market. Without having to access the hardware through an operating system, developers can fine-tune the system to achieve optimal resource management of the CPU, peripherals and memory, and to reduce system latencies by up to 500X compared to running under the Linux operating system. In more complex systems that may require an operating system to manage multiple data flows, StarterWare provides an optimum foundation. Many real-time operating system (RTOS) vendors are planning to leverage StarterWare in their offerings for TI embedded processors.

In addition to these benefits provided by StarterWare for TI's Sitara 32-bit ARM MPUs and C6000 DSPs, TI's DSP + ARM processors are supported with a simplified and low-latency inter-processor communication software layer that does not require an operating system, enabling processing and input/output (I/O) tasks to be efficiently shared between the two cores for optimized system performance.