Arm Development Studio forum A few questions about ARM microcontrollers

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A few questions about ARM microcontrollers

Note: This was originally posted on 18th August 2011 at http://forums.arm.com

Hello,

I am a student and have been learning to use Microchip PIC18 microcontrollers over the past few years. I have recently discovered a need for a more powerful microcontroller family and am trying to decide whether I should give ARM microcontrollers a try. I have been reading about the ARM Cortex family of microcontrollers, but have a few questions for people who actually are experienced using them.

What is the recommended programmer/debugger for beginners?
What is the best free tool chain / IDE for programming ARM products?
Are there any objective, or even remotely objective (), comparisons of Microchip's microcontrollers (such as dsPIC and PIC32) to ARM microcontrollers?

I would appreciate any advice you might be able to give me, thank you!