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Usage of STM32MP1xx without linux

SBrun
Associate

For a new design I need a very powerful MPU device. I would like to use STM32MP1 without Linux OS. I don't need this OS. Does it make sense to use STM32MP1 for a bare metal application? Compared to STMH747, what is the performance of STM32MP1 processor? I did not find any results on the STM32MP1 coremark score on the EMBC website

3 REPLIES 3
PatrickF
ST Employee

Hi,

There is no development support from ST to use STM32MP15 in bare-metal, only Linux or Android are supported. CubeMP1 HAL library are only intended to be used for Cortex-M4.

For bare-metal, you will probably have to do a lot of custom development or use a 3rd party. Cortex-A low level development is less friendly than Cortex-M.

In bare metal, GPU is unlikely to be usable (only a Linux/android binary is provided). Managing dual-Cortex-A7 in bare metal is also complex.

Nevertheless, TF-A (and maybe uBoot) are kind of bare-metal SW (with very limited set of peripheral support).

Only looking at Coremark, Cortex-A7 is less powerful than Cortex-M7 (in STM32H7). Cortex-A7 exhibit around 3 or 4 Coremark per MHz per core (depend on ARM/Thumb code execution and used compiler). Cortex-M7 is reaching 5 per MHz.

Nevertheless, Coremark is only showing one part of the performance you could get, Cortex-A7 usually provide larger caches, complex/secure MMU support, NEON coprocessor, etc... and last but not least, the Linux ecosystem and communities.

Regards.

In order to give better visibility on the answered topics, please click on 'Accept as Solution' on the reply which solved your issue or answered your question.

You'd have to DIY, so don't expect ST to run ropelines, or support off-label usage.

Perhaps look at Rockchip or other vendors of multi-core devices for tablets, etc.

Established players like Broadcom and Marvell tend to lockdown any helpful info.

Look also at RPi Pico (RP2040) these could probably be quite versatile if arrayed.

An array of STM32H750's could also give some good density, and the 280 MHz 64-pin STM32H7A3 more so.

https://www.st.com/resource/en/datasheet/stm32h7a3ri.pdf

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ZElbi.1
Associate

Is there a guideline to use TF-A with u-boot, but without Linux?