TI announced their C2000 controlSUITE software, which takes a different and interesting approach to developing microcontroller (MCU) applications.

I spoke with Michael Wei, C2000 MCU Marketing Manager, a couple weeks before this announcement to get some background. The basic problem he’s seeing is not everyone is starting at the same point, but systems and MCUs are getting more complex and software is becoming the bottleneck. Some developers like to be very familiar with a device family, down to the register programming level. Others are more comfortable with libraries. Still others need more of a development kit approach.

controlSUITE has 4 different levels of programming – direct assembler, bit fields, API drivers and libraries, and full application frameworks. Developers can jump in where they are most comfortable.

“controlSUITE covers the entire design process from simple design of peripherals to full application design,” said Wei. He points out that controlSUITE is about much more than just libraries, but that’s a big part of the solution. “Programmers fear using libraries means taking a hit in performance – but that’s not necessarily true and they are missing the benefits.” For instance, TI’s IQMath library solves many of the problems between fixed and floating point implementations and speeds application development by avoiding the issues developers often run into.

There are also features like an improved installer to help install support for devices into the Eclipse-based IDE, and an incremental build process for an application like motor control which helps verify code in steps.

controlSUITE itself is free of charge and downloadable, and there are several developer’s kits utilizing it which will be available this year.