ARM CMSIS/KEIL & WIZnet's New Products

ARM CMSIS/KEIL & WIZnet

The CMSIS-Driver specification is a software API that describes peripheral driver interfaces for middleware stacks and user applications. The CMSIS-Driver API is designed to be generic and independent of a specific RTOS making it reusable across a wide range of supported microcontroller devices. The CMSIS-Driver API covers a wide range of use cases for the supported peripheral types, but can not take every potential use-case into account. Over time, it is indented to extend the CMSIS-Driver API with further groups to cover new use-cases.

(source: https://arm-software.github.io/CMSIS_5/Driver/html/index.html)

Below are the SW development platforms from the major MCU manufacturers.

(refer to the RED & GREEN box)

STMicroelectronics

NXP

In most cases, MCU manufacturers provide basic SDK or their own unique SW development platforms.

Below are the SW development platform block diagram from ARM Mbed and Keil.

(refer to the RED & GREEN box)

ARM Mbed

ARM Keil

Based on the cases above, we can categorize the SW development platforms as below.

SW Development Platforms	Examples	Details
(1) MCU SDK from chip manufacturers	RP2040 SDK	Basic SDK’s are provided (CMSIS Core/DSP/DAP is used)
(2) S/W Framework from chip manufacturers	STM32Cube(ST), MCUXpresso(NXP), …	SW components and other platforms are provided besides basic SDK (CMSIS Core/DSP/DAP is used)
(3) H/W Based IoT development platform	Arduino, Adafruit, ….	Unique SW development platforms are provides based on (1) & (2) above (CMSIS Core/DSP/DAP is used)
(4) S/W Based IoT development platform	Micropython, FreeRTOS (AWS), ThreadX (Azure), …..
(A) IoT development platform from ARM	Mbed	CMSIS Core + Mbed Components
(B) IoT development platform from Keil(ARM)	Keil with CMSIS package	CMSIS Core/DSP/DAP/RTOS/NN/Driver…

The most commonly used SW development platform among the above are from (1) to (4).

Case (1) & (2) are used in mass-production commercial industry, whereas (3) & (4) are used more in the Open Source community.

As for (A) & (B), we speculate ARM is attempting to remodel Mbed, its end-to-end platform (silicon/SW development/cloud), and expand their SW platform by adding the CMSIS feature (https://www.open-cmsis-pack.org/) after acquiring Keil.

WIZnet intends to continue to synchronize our products with SW development platforms (1) to (4), and also collaborate with ARM(Keil)/CMSIS as their silicon partner.