ST by leaps and bounds
29
Mar
2024
If everyone expected a Cortex-M55 or M85 during the March 19th event, ST created the surprise by announcing 18nm FD-SOI and ePCM memory with promises of dramatic power consumption and noise reductions. If it comes true in 2025 and the technology allows for decent latency, it could provide an unfair advantage to ST MCUs, wireless and others. We will likely see it first in slower MCU product lines unless paired with memory caches.
No change, the website is unusually slow.
Microchip added parts to their new AVR DU family based on the former Atmel AVR16 core, running at up to 24 MHz, 1.8V to 5.5V. The family includes 16 KB, 32 KB, and 64 KB Flash variants in 14 to 32-pin package options. The main attribute of the AVR DU is a USB 2.0 Full Speed device. In total there were 133 additions, all variants of existing products, and mostly in the PIC16F1xxxx realm.
No change this month.
No change this month.
NXP expanded the Kinetis E (MKE) series with a handful of parts in the KE1xZ – mainstream with touch family.
Prices for the KE1xZ range from $1@10k to $3@10k. A number of old MK11D/MK21DX parts were retired too.
Renesas was quite active this month with update in many areas.
The RA2A2 group was disclosed with 12 parts. It features low-power with a 48MHz Cortex-M23 core and a segment LCD controller.
There were over 300 new parts in the RL78/D1A (Automotive Low-end Instrument Clusters) and G1A (Low Power, GP with High-resolution A/D Converter) groups.
Finally, the RX family had another 100 parts spread across the RX111, RX62 and RX63.
No change.
There was a flurry of annoucements last month on technology and products.
On the technology front, ST announced an advanced process based on 18nm Fully Depleted Silicon On Insulator (FD-SOI) technology with embedded phase change memory (ePCM) to support next-generation embedded processing devices. This new process technology, co-developed by ST and Samsung Foundry, is bound to deliver a leap in performance and power consumption for embedded processing applications while allowing larger memory sizes and higher levels of integration of analog and digital peripherals.
The first next-generation STM32 microcontroller based on the new technology will sample before the end of 2024, with production planned for the second half of 2025.
Compared to ST 40nm embedded non-volatile memory (eNVM) technology used today, 18nm FD-SOI with ePCM improves key figures of merit:
- More than 50% better performance-to-power ratio
- 2.5-times higher non-volatile memory (NVM) density enabling larger on-chip memories
- Three times higher digital density for integration of digital peripherals such as AI and graphics accelerators and state-of-the-art security and safety features
- 3dB improvement in noise figure for enhanced RF performance in wireless MCUs
It is the only sub-20 nm technology supporting 3V operation to supply analog features such as power management, reset systems, clock sources and digital/analog converters.
It is unclear what speed and memory latency we should expect as this has been a bottleneck of the technology.
On the products front, ST unveiled the STM32H7R/S with 36 part numbers. These 600 MHz Cortex-M7 MCUs feature an impressive array of peripherals including I3C, USB HS w. PHY and UCPD.
The the R3/S3 variants add FMC and xSPI up to 200 MHz with XiP and MCE, Chrom-ART and JPEG Codec while the R7S7 upgrade to a NeoChrom GPU, Jpeg codec and TFT LCD controller.
At the other end of the spectrum, ST released the STM32U0 series, based on the more modest Cortex-M0+ core at 56 MHz. It targets SESIP Level 3, PSA-Certified Level 1, and NIST certifications. From low to high features, here are some details on the portfolio:
- The STM32U031x line offers up to 64 Kbytes of flash memory, 12 Kbytes of SRAM and comes in eight packages from 20 to 64 pins, in TSSOP, WLCSP, UFQFPN, LQFP, and UFBGA. It features a 12-bit ADC and capacitive sensing channels.
- The STM32U073x line offers from 16 to 256 Kbytes of flash memory, 40 Kbytes of SRAM and comes in eight packages from 32 to 81 pins, in UFQFPN, WLCSP, LQFP, and UFBGA. It adds a USB and a LCD controller to the STM32U031.
- The STM32U083x line offers 256 Kbytes of flash memory, 40 Kbytes of SRAM and comes in eight packages from 32 to 81 pins, in UFQFPN, WLCSP, LQFP, and UFBGA. It embeds an AES accelerator.
- Supporting the latest protocols (Bluetooth® Low Energy 5.4, IEEE 802.15.4 communication protocols, Zigbee®, Thread and Matter), the STM32WBA54/55 line brings designers flexibility while ensuring enhanced security. Bluetooth 5.4 audio streaming is also supported.
117 part numbers were released.
TI released about a dozen variants of existing parts.
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