STMicro STM32 has popular Cortex-M micro-controller found in the $2 “Blue Pill” board, STMicro’s own Nucleo Board, as well as many other variants. Olavi Kamppari (OliviliK), working on hard real-time control with EmBitz IDE, has created a detailed Wiki for STMicro STM32 on Github with lots of information, including an interesting comparison table of various STM32 Cortex M3 boards (and one GD32 board).
I’ve reproduced the table in his wiki below, made is sortable & filterable, and added links to Aliexpress store found in other parts of the wiki.
| Name | Manufacturer | Price | Processor | Speed MHz | Flash kB | SRAM kB | Package | I/O Pins | SWD | UART | User Button | User LED | Dimensions HxWxL inch | Weight grams | Mount |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HY Tiny | PowerMCU | $3.80 + shipping | STM32F103TBU6 | 72 | 128 | 20 | 36 | 25 | hdr | hdr | PA1 | 0.24x0.84x1.55 | 2 | Breadboard | |
| Blue Pill | VCC-GND | $1.96 | STM32F103C8T6 | 72 | 64 | 20 | 48 | 32 | hdr | PC13 | 0.45x0.89x2.27 | 6 | Breadboard | ||
| Smart V2.0 | Unknown | $3.69 | STM32F103C8T6 | 72 | 64 | 20 | 48 | 33 | JTAG | PA0 | PC13 | 0.45x1.66x2.18 | 13 | Double Breadboard | |
| Demo Board | Unknown | $4.37 | STM32F103C8T6 | 72 | 64 | 20 | 48 | 35 | JTAG | hdr | PC13 | 0.51x1.44x2.90 | 15 | Double Breadboard | |
| ME V5.02 | ME | $5.10 | STM32F103C8T6 | 72 | 64 | 20 | 48 | 35 | JTAG | hdr | PD2 | 0.46x1.78x2.47 | 18 | 4 holes | |
| GD Red Pill | Unknown | $5.10 | GD32F103C8T6 | 72, 96, 108, 120 | 64 | 20 | 48 | 30 | hdr | 0.72x1.00x2.44 | 8 | Breadboard | |||
| BTE14-07 | Baite | $4.00 | STM32F103CBT6 | 72 | 128 | 20 | 48 | 31 | PB8 | PB1 | 0.26x0.73x2.10 | 4 | Breadboard | ||
| LC Tech RB | LC Technology | $9.88 | STM32F103RBT6 | 72 | 128 | 20 | 64 | 51 | JTAG | hdr | 0.47x1.41x2.28 | 15 | |||
| Nucleo-F103RB | STM | $15.32 | STM32F103RBT6 | 72 | 128 | 20 | 64 | 51 | USB | PC13 | PA5 | 0.75x2.75x3.28 | 33 | 3 holes | |
| MiniF103R | Unknown | $12.57 | STM32F103RBT6 | 72 | 128 | 20 | 64 | 51 | JTAG | USB | PC0, PC1 | 0x92x2.67x3.65 | 38 | 4 holes | |
| ME V1.02 | ME | $9.88 | STM32F103RCT6 | 72 | 128 | 20 | 64 | 53 | JTAG | hdr | PD2 | 0.46x1.97x2.76 | 22 | 4 holes | |
| VCC-GND | VCC-GND | $10.72 | STM32F103VCT6 | 72 | 256 | 48 | 100 | 80 | hdr | PB9 | 0x23x1.55x1.95 | 8 | |||
| ME F103/F407 | ME | $12.00 | STM32F103VET6 | 72 | 512 | 64 | 100 | 78 | hdr | hdr | 0.53x2.44x3.73 | 34 | 8 holes | ||
| LC Tech ZE | LC Technology | $12.99 | STM32F103ZET6 | 72 | 512 | 64 | 144 | 112 | JTAG | hdr | 0.47x1.95x2.91 | 26 | 4 holes | ||
| VCC-GND ZE | VCC-GND | $14.72 | STM32F103ZET6 | 72 | 512 | 64 | 144 | 112 | hdr | 0.44x1.86x2.38 | 12 |
You can find much more details about each board in the Wiki.
Thanks to Zoobab for the tip.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Wouw “VCC-GND” as manufacturer name, that’s a pretty name.
Shall we vote for favourites? Mine is the PowerMCU/HotMCU Hy Tiny, it doesn’t have so much I/O that it gets confusing, but it’s got 128kB flash so it can handle larger projects. I’ve lost count of how many I’ve used…
@RobBrownNZ
Nice one, but the Ali page says “Sorry, this item is no longer available!”.
@zoobab
We’ve changed the page to Hotmcu -> http://www.hotmcu.com/stm32f103tb-arm-cortex-m3-development-board-p-222.html?cPath=1_20
Add Open103Z from Waveshare.com
@RobBrownNZ
My blue pill has also 128kB flash and much more I/O’s
@Demetris
Really? All the links I’ve seen for that board show it with an STM32F103C8T6 which has 64kB flash. Where did you get yours?
@Jim Williams
That board looks a little more advanced. I could add it. Please provide the row of data for that board.
That’s the bad blue/red pills on the picture.
If you want to buy, find one with more legs on USB port.
My blue pill need replacing resistor to activate USB.
It also need Flash Loader Demonstrator to unlock the flash.
Somewhere it told me it has 128kB flash,
may be on Flash Loader Demonstrator,
but I don’t know how to test.
I think there’s no difference between the blue and the red except the color.
i did read a few things about those stm32 boards when the blue/red pill article was published here and if i remember correctly stm32duino (stm32 lib for arduino ide) only supports some (most?) of those boards.
Of course it’s not absolutely necessary to use that lib, but i’m wondering if it would be interesting to list that as well.
Using that compatibility layer i was able to replace an arduino nano with an stm32 boards with almost no code change and it improved dramatically the quality (speed) of the display on that project, it was pretty cool to be able to do that.
I believe the board i used was the Baite Maple Mini, and yeah if you’re going the arduino way you’d better have 128k of flash.