Open development environment combines MCUs with advanced components

The STM32 Open Development Environment is designed for flexibility, affordability and ease-of-use. Customers start by choosing the target STM32 Nucleo development board, and selecting from the growing range of plug-in, stackable STM32 Nucleo expansion boards to add sense, control, connectivity, power, audio or other functions. This creates a hardware platform for fast prototyping using components that can quickly be transformed into final designs.

The free STM32Cube tools and software can work within popular development environments, including IAR EWARM, Keil MDK-ARM, GCC-based IDEs, or online mbed, and they enable configuration of the STM32 Nucleo development board, as well as the downloading of additional software, to create and run the targeted functionality on the selected expansion boards.

The STM32 family spans the low-power STM32 L0 series to the high performance STM32 F7 series. To date, ST has released nine STM32 Nucleo development boards supporting STM32 F0, F1, F3 and F4 MCUs, including low-power STM32 L0 and L1 devices. The boards have ST Morpho and Arduino-compatible headers on-board to provide even greater expansion opportunities.

Currently available expansion boards from ST deliver motion and environmental sensing, Bluetooth Smart, motor control and NFC functions. Battery management, Wi-Fi, sub-GHz radio, light/proximity-sensing and audio expansion boards are planned for late-2014 introduction.

STM32Cube expansion software, compatible with the STM32Cube software framework, is provided free of charge for every STM32 Nucleo expansion board. Developers can also take advantage of third-party expansion boards that are compatible with the STM32 Nucleo development boards.

The STM32Cube platform combines the STM32CubeMX graphical configurator and initialisation C-code generator with a set of rich embedded-software components including a hardware abstraction layer and middleware applicable to the target MCU. This provides access to all the generic software components needed for application development in a convenient package that saves assessing interdependencies between software from different sources.

“ST has a vast range of state-of-the-art components that provide vital functionality for embedded systems and the STM32 Open Development Environment now modularises access to these components to support innovation and rapid prototyping,” commented Paul Grimme, Executive Vice President, Mass Market & Online Marketing Programs, STMicroelectronics. “Customers also benefit from the broad choice of more than 500 STM32 MCUs supported by STM32 Nucleo developer boards, as well as user-friendly, open-source software licenses, and can work within their preferred IDE for complete confidence and familiarity.”

The STM32CubeMX tools and embedded software libraries can be downloaded from ST's website. STM32 Nucleo development and expansion boards are in production now, priced from $10.32.