µClinux for ARM Cortex-M3

Energy Micro and Pengutronix today announced that they will be demonstrating µClinux for the ARM Cortex-M3. This embedded Linux will be running on the energy friendly EFM32 Gecko range of microcontrollers at this year’s Embedded World Show.

This new port of µClinux features the latest version 3.2 Linux kernel, and gives embedded designers all of the cost and time-to-market benefits of using an open source embedded operating system, while maintaining low current consumption of just 1.6mA when in idle mode. Energy Micro, the energy friendly microcontroller and radio company, assisted and supported Pengutronix to complete the port to the Giant Gecko MCU range, the industry’s leading family of low-energy microcontrollers.

Using µClinux reduces design cycles and accelerates time-to-market by giving the designer access to ready-made system functions such as IP connectivity, file systems, and multi-tasking. Users can also employ the broad range of free software and drivers available as open source, within a robust, portable open source framework.

The Embedded Linux/Microcontroller project is a port of Linux designed for systems without a memory management unit (MMU). The OS is an excellent performer for embedded use giving applications access to a rich set of free libraries and core OS services. Designers can choose which functionality to include in their systems, allowing them to trade sophistication with code footprint – often a critical factor in embedded designs.


Robert Schwebel, CEO of Pengutronix, will be giving a presentation entitled “Ultra Low Power: Applications with Giant Gecko and Cortex-M3” at 11:30am on Feb 1 of the Embedded World Conference. Live demonstrations will be on show at the Pengutronix booth 5-341 in Hall 5 and Energy Micro’s booth 1-523 in Hall 1 during the Embedded World event.

Energy Micro’s Gecko microcontroller portfolio consists of 180 variants based on the ARM Cortex-M processor cores, and includes Gecko Technology benchmarked to consume just a quarter of the energy of competing 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit MCUs.

Click Here to visit Pengutronix for more information about the distribution of µClinux.

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