Microcontrollers

Choosing between Keil MDK and Development Studio

Keil MDK is best suited to commercial, off-the-shelf embedded microcontrollers. Development Studio is best suited to Arm application processors and custom SoC designs. See a full comparison table »

For Arm Cortex-M series embedded microcontroller software development, we recommend Keil MDK.

Try Keil MDK

Get started with an evaluation of Keil MDK v5, including a 7-day trial of MDK-Professional and MDK-Plus editions.

Try Keil MDK v5

Keil MDK has a comprehensive set of features for Cortex-M based microcontrollers, including:

Device Database

Keil MDK links to a device database containing thousands of MCUs and development boards, providing out-of-the-box example projects and device support packs. Flash programming supports easy upload of software.

µVision Debug and Trace

The IDE combines project management, source code editing, debugger and simulator. The long-term trace capture enables code coverage, logic analyzer and profiling

Middleware

MDK-Professional and MDK-Plus editions features middleware such as USB and TCP/IP communication stacks for thousands of microcontrollers, allowing you to develop functioning systems quickly and efficiently.

Complete support for Cortex-M, Cortex-R4, Arm7, and Arm9 devices
Industry-leading Arm C/C++ Compilation Toolchain
Keil RTX deterministic, small footprint real-time operating system (with source code)
Complete GUI Library for embedded systems with graphical user interfaces
ULINKpro enables on-the-fly analysis of running applications and records every executed Cortex-M instruction
Cortex Microcontoller Software Interface Standard (CMSIS) compliant

Toolchain Compatibility

For projects where both Keil MDK and Development Studio are required, we provide access to Arm Compiler 6, allowing a common C/C++ compilation toolchain to be used for bare-metal software development.