The 32-bit microcontroller (MCU) STM32 has been around for 10 years. There are many cases where a specific product line has been loved for a long time, but it is not common for it to be chosen by developers due to the changing trends and development environments every year. It is a product that has been consistently loved by the industry for the past 10 years as an MCU that you want to use once, twice, and keep using.

Behind the success of STM32 was the efforts of ST Korea, which did not neglect to reflect the opinions of developers. We met with Kyung-Hwa Choi (pictured), a manager at STMicroelectronics Korea who has been watching over STM32 for 10 years, and asked about the past 10 years and future plans.

-It's been 10 years since the launch of STM32. What was the situation 10 years ago?

I still vividly remember the day when we launched STM32 10 years ago. At that time, customer awareness of ARM Cortex M was not high. We had to promote the advantages of ARM Cortex M3 along with STM32.
-Why do you think STM32 has been continuously used for 10 years?

STM32 has released a variety of product lines suitable for high performance and ultra-low power. It was able to grow rapidly based on the versatility and technological superiority of the ARM core. In particular, ST helped maximize performance by increasing flash speed (flash access) with its own technology, the ART (Adaptive Real Time) accelerator. While general 32-bit MCUs support functions such as prefetch buffer, ART supports more memory and prevents delays in operation due to memory access when the core operates at high speed. That's why it's ideal for applications that require high-speed processing.
-So, which MCU product lines should we keep an eye on this year?

From ultra-low-power products to high-performance product lines, we are highlighting the STM32H7 family that can handle applications such as fancy graphics processing and voice recognition, the STM32F4 that is widely used worldwide for its price-to-performance ratio targeting IoT applications, and the STM32L0 family of low-power products suitable for IoT node products. To allow selection of various peripherals, the ST MCU Finder app was released for Android, iOS, and PC, which was well-received by customers.

-What is the market response to the BAM (Batch Acquisition Mode) mode technology, which you emphasize as being particularly suitable for wearables that are sensitive to power consumption?

The BAM function puts the CPU to sleep, continuously detects, and wakes the CPU only when necessary to display data. This reduces power consumption. The goal is to get about a week of battery life out of a wearable device on a coin battery, and I know customers have seen results with BAM.
-Security-related issues have been a hot topic recently due to IoT, but how is the security of STM32?

There are no hacking cases in Korea yet, but there are damage cases in China. We need to prepare in advance. Previously, we supported it with software rather than hardware, but since software is vulnerable, we built in encryption processing blocks such as AES, MD5, SHA, and a random number generator. We also added temper protection to prevent duplication and a memory protection unit to prevent communication code duplication. We are also releasing a form that has a built-in security system that checks if someone is trying to hack the device when it is turned on and turns on the system. The most powerful form is one where ST and the customer supply serial numbers on a 1:1 basis.
-What else do customers ask of ST?

Since our clients are diverse, they have different requirements than the head office lineup. We also provided convenience by working on Korean guides and easy guides that were not prepared at the head office. In areas where Korea is ahead of the rest of the world, we (ST Korea) actively exchanged feedback with the head office. We also provided solutions that were jointly developed by engineers and marketing, and achieved good results. Such precedents are being replicated to other customers in the United States and China.