The Definitive Guide to the ARM Cortex-M3

CHAPTER 13 The Memory Protection Unit

In This Chapter:

• Overview

• MPU Registers

• Setting Up the MPU

• Typical Setup

Overview

The Cortex-M3 design includes an optional Memory Protection Unit (MPU). Including the MPU in the microcontrollers or SoC products provides memory protection features, which can make the developed products more robust. The MPU needs to be programmed and enabled before use. If the MPU is not enabled, the memory system behavior is the same as though no MPU is present.

The MPU can improve the reliability of an embedded system by:

• Preventing user applications from corrupting data used by the operating system
• Separating data between processing tasks by blocking tasks from accessing others’ data
• Allowing memory regions ...