How a code is executed in stm32/ARM Cortex M controllers

[hariprasad]

Posted on July 19, 2015 at 08:10

I know that when a c program is compiled and flashed it goes into the flash memory and the flash memory contains the text section, initialized variable section and Read only section.

So I just want to know when a program actually executes does it gets copied to RAM or just the controller takes each instruction from Flash and executes without bringing it to RAM? I'm Little confused please help me... #arm-cortex-m3 #!stm32f4-disco

[Tesla DeLorean]

Posted on July 19, 2015 at 14:20

The internal flash is within the regular address space of the STM32, the code executes directly from it.

There is an ART unit on the F2/F4 is which operates as a cache to the flash memory, this hides some of it's slowness (wait states), and the internal structure which is wider.