March 14, 2014, Seoul — STMicroelectronics (ST), a global semiconductor company contributing to customers across a wide range of electronic applications, announced the addition of a new 512KB flash-sized chip to its ultra-low-power ARM® Cortex®-M3 32-bit microcontroller STM32L1 series. With this, the L1 series has become the only microcontroller series on the market that combines ultra-low power consumption with up to 512KB flash and 80KB RAM, featuring more than 70 products across three product lines.

These new chips provide excellent low-power operation through ST's proprietary Ultra-low-leakage (ULL) 110nm CMOS process and optimized architecture that dramatically reduces leakage, and are aimed at cost-effective embedded designs for battery-operated applications in fitness, healthcare, wearables, and industrial/measurement fields.

The main features of the L1 series are as follows.
• High-performance ARM Cortex-M3 32-bit core operating at up to 33 DMIPS at 32 MHz
• Pin-to-pin and software compatible with existing STM32L1 chips
• Run mode dynamic power consumption reduced from 257µA/MHz at 32MHz to 177µA/MHz at 4MHz
• Two ultra-low power modes reducing to 435nA with SRAM retention
• True Embedded EEPROM
• Dual-bank flash with RWW (Read-While-Write) functionality enabling high-speed, secure firmware updates and rollback to previous data in case current data is invalid or corrupted

The new chips inherit the DNA of the existing STM32L1, which features voltage scaling, a flexible clock tree using a low-power MSI (multi-speed internal) oscillator, and an operating temperature range of -40 to +85°C or up to 105°C in low-power mode, while utilizing ST's new 110nm process technology to have the smallest variation in power consumption between 25°C and +105°C in the industry.

The STM32 L1 512KB supports STM32 Nucleo expansion boards to help accelerate software and hardware development. This new prototyping board is powered by mbed and supports Arduino connectivity, while providing an ST Morpho expansion header that allows access to all on-chip peripherals of the microcontroller.

Migration of existing applications is easier because you can utilize all software libraries and development tools included in the STM32 portfolio that are provided for existing ultra-low power chips.