STM32
More info
- Owner
- STMicroelectronics
- Released
- 2007
- Type
- Microcontroller family
- Website
- st.com
STMicroelectronics' sprawling family of 32-bit microcontrollers built on ARM Cortex-M.
The first generation, the Cortex-M3-based STM32F1, arrived in 2007, when 8-bit AVR and PIC chips still ruled the hobbyist bench. The family has since grown into an alphabet: F0 for the cheapest parts, F4 and H7 for performance, the L and U series for battery power, WB and WL with built-in radios.
The hobbyist breakthrough came with the Chinese "Blue Pill" board, an STM32F103 for pocket change, and ST's own Nucleo boards with an ST-LINK debugger on board over SWD. The CubeMX tool generates initialisation code on top of ST's HAL — convenient, though anyone who reads the generated code soon understands why so many people write straight to the registers instead.