STMicro STM32U3 is a new family of Arm Cortex-M33 microcontrollers clocked at up to 96 MHz with ultra-low-power consumption designed for utility meters, healthcare devices such as glucose meters and insulin pumps, and industrial sensors.
The company says the STM32U3 MCU family is a “market leader in terms of efficiency” with 117 Coremark/mW in active mode, and consumes 1.6µA in stop mode. The Coremark/mW score means the STM32U3 offers almost twice the efficiency of the STM32U5 series, and five times that of the STM32L4 series. Other highlights include up to 1MB of dual-bank flash, 256kB of SRAM, and various interfaces like MIPI I3C, SAI audio, 12-bit ADC, etc…
STMicro STM32U3 key features and specifications:
- MCU Core
- 32-bit Arm Cortex-M33 CPU @ 96 MHz with TrustZone and FPU
- Performance
- 1.5 DMIPS/MHz (Dhrystone 2.1)
- 387 CoreMark (4.09 CoreMark/MHz)
- 500 ULPMark-CP
- 117 ULPMark-CM
- 202000 SecureMark-TLS
- ART Accelerator with DSP instructions
- Memory/Storage
- 256 KB SRAM including 64 KB with hardware parity check
- 512KB or 1024KB dual-bank flash with ECC
- OCTOSPI external memory interface supporting SRAM, PSRAM, NOR, NAND, and FRAM memories
- SDMMC interface
- Peripherals
- Up to 82x GPIOs with interrupt capability, most 5 V-tolerant, and up to 14 I/Os with independent supply down to 1.08 V
- USB 2.0 full-speed controller
- 1x SAI (serial audio interface)
- Audio digital filter with sound-activity detection
- 3x I2C FM+(1 Mbit/s), SMBus/PMBus™
- 2x I3C (SDR), with support of I2C FM+ mode
- 2x USARTs and 2x UARTs (SPI, ISO 7816, LIN, IrDA, modem), 1x LPUART
- 3x SPIs (6x SPIs when including 1x with OCTOSPI + 2x with USART)
- CAN FD controller
- 12-channel GPDMA controller, functional in Sleep and Stop modes (up to Stop 2)
- Up to 21x capacitive sensing channels with support for touch key, linear, and rotary touch sensors
- Analog
- 2× 12-bit ADC 2.5 Msps with hardware oversampling
- 12-bit DAC module with 2 D/A converters, low-power sample and hold, autonomous in Stop 1 mode
- 2x operational amplifiers with built-in PGA
- 2x ultralow-power comparators
- Up to 15x timers and 2x watchdogs
- 1x 16-bit advanced motorcontrol
- 3x 32bit and 3x 16bit general purpose
- 2x 16bit basic
- 4x lowpower 16bit timers (available in Stop mode)
- 2x watchdogs
- 2x SysTick timer
- RTC with hardware calendar, alarms, and calibration
- CRC calculation unit
- Security and cryptography
- Arm TrustZone and securable I/Os, memories, and peripherals
- Flexible life cycle scheme with RDP and password protected debug
- Root of trust due to unique boot entry and secure hide protection area (HDP)
- Secure firmware installation (SFI) from embedded root secure services (RSS)
- Secure data storage with hardware unique key (HUK)
- Secure firmware upgrade
- Support of Trusted firmware for Cortex-M (TF-M)
- 2x AES coprocessors, including one with side channel attack resistance (SCA) (SAES)
- Public key accelerator, SCA resistant
- Key hardware protection
- Attestation keys
- HASH hardware accelerator
- True random number generator (TRNG), NIST SP800-90B compliant
- 96-bit unique ID
- 512-byte OTP (one-time programmable)
- Antitamper protection
- Clocks
- 4 to 50 MHz crystal oscillator
- 32.768 kHz crystal oscillator for RTC (LSE)
- Internal 16 MHz factory-trimmed RC (±1 %)
- Internal low-power RC with frequency 32 kHz or 250 Hz (±5 %)
- 2x internal multispeed 3 MHz to 96 MHz oscillators
- Internal 48 MHz with clock recovery
- Accurate MSI in PLL-mode and up to 96 MHz with 32.768 kHz, 16 MHz, or 32 MHz crystal oscillator
- Debugging – Serial-wire debug (SWD), JTAG, Embedded Trace Macrocell (ETM)
- Supply Voltage – 1.71V to 3.6V
- Power management – Embedded regulator (LDO) and SMPS step-down converter supporting switch on-the-fly and voltage scaling
- Power Consumption
- 1.6 μA Stop 3 mode with 8-Kbyte SRAM
- 2.2 μA Stop 3 mode with full SRAM
- 3.8 μA Stop 2 mode with 8-Kbyte SRAM
- 4.5 μA Stop 2 mode with full SRAM
- 9.5 μA/MHz Run mode @ 3.3 V (While(1) SMPS step-down converter mode)
- 13 μA/MHz Run mode @ 3.3 V/48 MHz (CoreMark SMPS step-down converter mode)
- 16 μA/MHz Run mode @ 3.3 V/96 MHz (CoreMark SMPS step-down converter mode)
- Packages – All ECOPACK2 compliant (RoHS+)
- UFQFPN32 – 5 x 5 mm (Pitch: 0.5 mm)
- FQFPN48/LQFP48 – 7 x 7 mm
- WLCSP52 – 3.1 x 3.2 x 0.6 mm (Pitch: 0.4 mm)
- WLCSP68 – 3.1 x 3.2 x 0.6 mm (Pitch: 0.35 mm)
- UFBGA64/LQFP64
- UFBGA100/LQFP100
- Temperature Range – Up to -40 °C to +105 °C
Two families are available: the STM32U375 and the STM32U385, which adds cryptography with features like a coupling and chaining bridge (CCB), HUK (Hardware Unique Key) + PKA (Public Key Accelerator), and AES-128/256 + S-AES.
STMicro also shared a Coremark/mW comparison chart showing STM32U3 on top as the most efficient MCU. However, it’s not overly useful as the list only includes unnamed Competitors A to F.
Hardware and software development tools include the STM32CubeU3 MCU Package and the NUCLEO-U385RG-Q Nucleo-64 development board with STM32U385RGT6Q microcontroller, a USB-C Type-C port with ST-LINK debugger, and Arduino and ST morpho expansion headers.
The STM32U3 series is in production and the price is starting at $1.93 for orders of 10,000 pieces. The NUCLEO-U385RG-Q development board goes for $24.11 on ST’s estore. Visit the product page and/or read the press release for additional details.
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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