[Editor's Note] ST MCUs are becoming widespread across industries and products. In particular, the number of STM32 products currently exceeds 3,000, with over 600 products released last year alone. STMicroelectronics, emphasizing the ecosystem and developer community, recently held the STM32 Summit on Tour Korea (hereinafter referred to as the STM32 Summit) to hold partner and developer sessions, and present the latest STM32 solutions. With the trend of on-device AI, implementation of next-generation technologies, functional safety, and cybersecurity reliability being the hot topics, we looked into the main agendas of the STM32 Summit.

We met with YouTuber 'Baram', who is a current developer and also runs a blog and YouTube channel that documents his development process as a hobby, and talked about his thoughts on participating in the STM32 Summit on Tour Korea and the content of his presentation.

*YouTuber Baram: Embedded firmware developer using MCU. He likes programming and mainly implements firmware related to hardware. My goal is to have fun programming for a long time.

■ Introducing the collaboration demo with ST

We announced the development and production of custom keyboards. These are small-scale products, not mass-produced ones, and custom keyboard development continues based on specific communities. Recently, gaming-related demand has increased. As demand for keyboards that are better at gaming has formed, keyboard manufacturers are also receiving inquiries and proposals about custom keyboard production.

This was the opportunity for me to come into contact with gaming keyboards and started making custom keyboards in that field. For gamers, it supports fast response speed when operating the keyboard, and with the 8K USB polling rate, the PC transmission latency is 0.125ms, which is 8 times faster than a regular keyboard. It also applies a fast key scan rate to minimize the key input recognition time.

We looked for an MCU that could apply these functions. The selection criteria were: △USB 2.0 High Speed support △Built-in PHY △64-pin package △Ease of supply, etc., and we decided to adopt the STM32 product. Among the STM32U5 series, we selected the STM32U5A5.

I thought a lot about which STM32 functions should be used to implement the gaming function when implementing the keyboard function. At that time, ST provided me with a development board and advice, and I was able to confirm the basic details.

Afterwards, it was completed as an actual product and sold. It had the advantage of reducing costs and improving functionality by utilizing many peripherals within STM32. It was implemented to process data at high speed without any external additional components.

■ Benefits of Collaborating with ST

ST is very interested in the Maker area, and I think that developers who are engaged in Maker activities can receive a lot of help from ST. It is not just about receiving a development kit, but also about receiving support in the process of making an actual product.

The product documentation contains guides and usage instructions, but there are times when you don’t know how to use the chip’s functions during the development process. If you contact ST at this time, they will provide technical review and feedback. Although it may not be a perfect solution, it can be a chance to get hints and solve the problem.

I had a similar experience recently when I was developing with the STM32M1 series and was lacking information, but I asked ST and received a good example of the function I wanted.

■ How does the current ST solution compare to the past?

When developers create a board, they write firmware using the MCU. At that time, a lot of additional work using the MCU is required. In the past, there were many elements that developers had to implement themselves, such as finding the source code and porting it to the MCU.

Nowadays, everything is included in the ST tool in the form of a plug-in. It is amazing compared to the past. In the past, tasks that took a week or a month can be implemented with just a few mouse clicks.

■ Impressions from participating in the ST Summit

It was surprising that a global company like ST was interested in my personal hobby. I heard that there aren't many people who enjoy development as a hobby outside of work. I got the feeling that ST was looking favorably on maker activities.

I appreciate your interest in this work, even though it is something I enjoy doing. I often hear that embedded development is difficult because there are not many new people entering the field and the entry barrier is high. However, since the ecosystem provided by ST is well-established, the development environment has improved significantly compared to the past.

ST hopes to improve and apply these areas further to encourage many new embedded developers to enter the market.