MCUs Combine STMicroelectronics Cortex-M7 Core & Advanced Peripherals
STMicroelectronics has become the first chip maker to begin volume production of microcontrollers featuring the new ARM Cortex-M7 processor: the latest and highest-performing Cortex-M core for advanced consumer, industrial, medical, and Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices.
The smart architecture of ST’s new STM32F7 microcontrollers combines the Cortex-M7 core with advanced peripherals, giving product designers unrivalled opportunities to enhance application performance, add new functions, extend battery life, ensure security, and minimize use of external components to save cost and size. The architecture also saves designers’ time usually spent optimizing code performance and length, to allow extra focus on creating differentiating features in the end product.
“ST’s first-to-market advantage and industry-leading architecture and feature integration enable our customers to deliver outstanding products into their own target markets,” said Daniel Colonna, Marketing Director, Microcontroller Division, STMicroelectronics. “Moreover, the strength of our development environment, including immediate availability of the STM32F7 Discovery Kit and firmware, allows rapid design cycles.”
To enable a large diversity of applications, the STM32F7 Discovery Kit comes with the comprehensive STM32Cube firmware library, as well as direct support from a wide ecosystem of software-development tool partners and the ARM® mbed™ online community. The Discovery Kit’s open hardware exposes the STM32F7 assets through an affordable compact design (priced at $49.90) including WQVGA touchscreen color display, stereo audio, multi-sensor support, security, and high-speed connectivity. Together with an integrated ST-Link debugger/programmer (no need for a separate probe), unlimited expansion capability is provided through the Arduino Uno connectivity support and immediate access to a large choice of specialized add-on boards.
The STM32F7 devices are in production now, in a range of package options from a 14mm x 14mm LQFP100 to 28mm x 28mm LQFP208, plus 10mm x 10mm 0.65mm-pitch UFBGA176, 13mm x 13mm 0.8mm-pitch TFBGA216, and 5.9mm x 4.6mm WLCSP143. Prices start from $6.73 for the STM32F745VE in 100-pin LQFP with 512KB on-chip Flash, for orders of 1000 units.
