18-04-2012, 04:42 PM
CITL Guide To The Philips ARM7-Based Microcontrollers
CITL ARM BOOK.pdf (Size: 7.31 MB / Downloads: 141)
Introduction
This book is intended as a hands-on guide for anyone planning to use the Philips LPC2000
family of microcontrollers in a new design. It is laid out both as a reference book and as a
tutorial. It is assumed that you have some experience in programming microcontrollers for
embedded systems and are familiar with the C language. The bulk of technical information
is spread over the first four chapters, which should be read in order if you are completely
new to the LPC2000 and the ARM7 CPU.
The ARM7 CPU Core
Outline
The CPU at the heart of the LPC2000 family is an ARM7. You do not need to be an expert
in ARM7 programming to use the LPC2000, as many of the complexities are taken care of
by the C compiler. You do need to have a basic understanding of how the CPU is working
and its unique features in order to produce a reliable design.
In this chapter we will look at the key features of the ARM7 core along with its
programmers’ model and we will also discuss the instruction set used to program it. This is
intended to give you a good feel for the CPU used in the LPC2000 family. For a more
detailed discussion of the ARM processors, please refer to the books listed in the
bibliography.
Registers
The ARM7 is a load-and-store architecture, so in order to perform any data processing
instructions the data has first to be moved from the memory store into a central set of
registers, the data processing instruction has to be executed and then the data is stored back
i nto memory.
Current Program Status Register
In addition to the register bank there is an additional 32 bit wide register called the ‘current
program status register’ (CPSR). The CPSR contains a number of flags which report and
control the operation of the ARM7 CPU.
Summary
This chapter is a bit of a moving target! The LPC2000 is a rapidly growing family with new
variants being released on a regular basis. Check the CD that came with this book for a .PDF
update to this chapter or keep an eye on the web at
If you have worked through this and the proceeding chapters, you should now have a firm
grasp of the LPC2000 family the ARM7 CPU and the necessary development tools.
Appendix B lists further reading and web resources for the ARM7 and the LPC2000 in
particular.