Arm, increasing MCU SW developer productivity
'Open-CMSIS-Pack' and 'Kyle Studio'
Strengthening IoT support by unveiling a cloud solution


On the 14th, Arm unveiled two initiatives for the IoT ecosystem: the open project "Open-CMSIS-Pack" and the IoT development tool "Keil Studio Cloud." These initiatives support code reuse and a pleasant development environment.


According to a report commissioned by Arm by Forrester, OEMs and ISVs developing and deploying IoT devices or applications are highly willing to partner with third parties to leverage existing solutions and technologies. 98% of OEMs and ISVs who participated in the survey reported experiencing challenges at all stages of development.

“With these two new initiatives, Arm will unlock the potential of the industry by expanding access to our software and tools,” said Reinhard Keil, senior director of embedded tools in Arm’s Development Solutions Group.

◇ Open-CMSIS-Pack provides a code reuse infrastructure.

The "things" of the Internet of Things (IoT) are largely comprised of MCU-based devices. Therefore, ensuring software compatibility for component reuse has long been a challenge. This importance is all the more significant because the IoT landscape boasts far greater hardware diversity than PCs or data centers.

The Common Microcontroller Software Interface Standard (CMSIS) is a vendor-independent abstraction layer designed by Arm for its Cortex-M processors. CMSIS-Pack is a packaging technology supporting 9,000 MCUs, facilitating project integration of drivers, middleware, and other software components across Arm-based devices.

This time, Arm plans to move parts of CMSIS to an open project called Open-CMSIS-Pack . Open-CMSIS-Pack provides an infrastructure to integrate and manage software components and improve code reuse across projects.

The Open-CMSIS-Pack project, an incubation initiative within Linaro's IoT and Embedded Group, will initially focus on a software component packaging standard, along with foundational tools for certification, distribution, integration, management, and maintenance. The initial focus of the project will be on command-line tools and the CMake workflow.

The project is a first step toward developing the CMSIS-Pack technology into a truly open standard for packaging MCU software components, targeting key IoT platform interfaces and creating a framework that can be applied across all ecosystems.

◇ Kyle Studio Cloud Supports Rapid IoT Device Development

Arm announced that Keil Studio Cloud , the first component of its next-generation Keil tool suite, has entered open beta. The early access beta allows developers to experience the Keil Studio workflow firsthand using a limited set of supported development boards and features.

The tool is browser-ready and provides an IDE that connects directly to the desktop board. There's no complicated tool installation, and project examples and resources are constantly updated, allowing you to run code on your device within minutes. Direct Git integration enables team distribution, collaborative development, and a modern CI workflow leveraging Arm modeling technology.

Additionally, flexible cloud-hosted development, first introduced through the Mbed online compiler, is provided, along with specialized features such as the CMSIS-Pack software component and run-control debug. A portal for developers to exchange feedback is also scheduled for release in the second half of this year.