Enhances embedded design efficiency with a new expansion board that combines the STM32 Nucleo microcontroller and STM32Cube SW into a single unit.

November 20, 2014, Seoul – STMicroelectronics (ST), a global semiconductor company contributing to customers across various electronic applications, has introduced the new STM32 Open Development Environment (ODE). It aims to provide a more efficient direction for development by integrating the STM32 microcontroller family with ST’s advanced components that provide key functions for the Internet of Things and other applications.

The new STM32 Open Development Environment is designed to be flexible, easy to use, and highly cost-effective. By selecting the desired STM32 Nucleo development board and then choosing plug-in stackable STM32 Nucleo expansion boards for necessary functions such as sensing, control, connectivity, power, and audio, a hardware platform for prototype products is completed, consisting of components that enable rapid transition to the final design.

The free STM32Cube tools and software can be used not only in popular development environments such as IAR EWARM, Keil MDK, GCC-based IDEs and online mbed™[1], but also to configure STM32 Nucleo development boards and download additional software to create and run functions on expansion boards.

Paul Grimme, Senior Vice President of Mass Market and Online Marketing Programs at ST, said, “ST has a wide range of cutting-edge components that provide key functions for embedded systems, and this STM32 Open Development Environment supports rapid prototyping and the development of innovative products by enabling the modular use of these components. Our customers can enjoy the benefits of user-friendly open source software licenses, a wide selection of over 500 STM32 microcontrollers supported on STM32 Nucleo developer boards, and the ability to work in a stable and familiar environment using their preferred IDE.”

The STM32 product family spans from the ultra-low-power STM32 L0 series to the ultra-high-performance STM32 F7 series. To date, a total of nine STM32 Nucleo development boards have been released, supporting the STM32 F0, F1, F3, F4, and ultra-low-power STM32 L0 and L1 chips. These boards provide broader development opportunities by offering onboard headers compatible with ST Morpho and Arduino.

ST’s expansion boards currently on the market feature motion and environment sensing, Bluetooth® Smart, motor control, and near-field communication (NFC) capabilities, and plans to introduce battery management, Wi-Fi, sub-gigahertz wireless communication, optical/proximity sensing, and audio expansion boards in late 2014.

STM32 Cube expansion software is provided free of charge for all STM32 Nucleo expansion boards and is compatible with the STM32 Cube software framework.

The STM32Cube platform provides a rich set of embedded software components, such as Hardware Abstraction Layers (HALs) and middleware tailored to the microcontroller, along with the STM32CubeMX graphical configurator and initialization C-code generator. This allows general software configurations required for application development to be utilized in convenient package forms, thereby reducing the need to evaluate interdependencies between software from different sources.

STM32CubeMX tools and embedded software libraries can be downloaded from www.st.com/stm32cube . The STM32 Nucleo development and expansion board is currently in production and starts at $10.32.

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