.NET Micro Framework on a ARM Cortex-M3 Core

Question

I have a RDK-IDM from Luminary Micro. This board has a 32-bit ARM® Cortex™-M3 core. Has anybody tried to run a .NET Micro Framework application on such a device?

Answer 1

The cortex M3 is a very cut-down core, it lacks an MMU, for example, and is intended to run very simple operating systems. Specifically, not Symbian/Windows Mobile/Linux/etc. Rather OSEck, OSEK, iTRON, or similar. I think this is actually totally infeasible due to that.

Answer 2

I don't have any hands on experience but based on http://www.microsoft.com/netmf/about/gettingstarted.mspx The smallest footprint supported is 64kb RAM, 256kb Flash and MMU is not required. Therefore your applications needs would be the determining factor.

FYI: the .NET Micro Framework was released as Open Source under the Apache 2.0 License November 16, 2009

Answer 3

It seems that the LM3S6918 (The chip on the RDK-IDM) has only 256KB Flash and 64Kb SRAM but .NET Micro Framework requires 256KB RAM and 512K Flash/ROM!

Read more here

Answer 4

We have ported .NET Micro Framework to TI Stellaris MCU, ARM Cortex-M3 core, currently we have a port for EK-LM3S8962 board, and it is working.

.NET Micro Framework Minimal memory footprint:

• Flash: 155KB
• RAM: 32KB