STMicro STM32WBA6 2.4 GHz wireless MCU gets up to 2MB flash, 512KB SRAM, USB OTG, and more

STMicro had two announcements yesterday. I’ve already covered the launch of the ultra-low-power STM32U3 microcontroller family, so today, I’ll check the new 100 MHz STM32WBA6 Cortex-M33 wireless MCU family with 2.4GHz radios for Bluetooth LE 6.0, Zigbee, Thread, and Matter designed for wearables, smart home devices, remote weather sensors, and more.

The STM32WBA6 is an evolution of the STM32WBA family introduced last year, especially of the STM32WBA54 and STM32WBA55 with many of the same features SESIP (Security Evaluation Standard for IoT Platforms) Level 3 security certification, but gets more memory and flash with up to 512KB of SRAM and up to 2MB of flash. The new  STM32WBA6 family also gains a High-Speed USB OTG interface and extra digital interfaces such as three SPI ports, four I2C ports, three USARTs, and one LPUART.

STMicro STM32WBA6 key features and specifications:

• MCU core – Arm Cortex-M33 at 100MHz with FPU and DSP
• Memory – Up to 512KB SRAM, including 64KB with parity check
• Storage
  • Up to 2MB dual-bank flash with ECC including 512 KB with 100K cycles
  • 512-byte OTP flash
• ART accelerator
• Wireless
  • Bluetooth Low Energy 6.0
    • Long Range (LR) capable
    • Up to 2 Mbps
    • Bluetooth LE audio support
    • Mesh networking
    • -96 dBm sensitivity at 1 Mbps
    • Embedded balun to reduce BoM
  • 802.15.4 radio
    • Zigbee, OpenThread, Matter
    • -100 dBm sensitivity at 250 Kbps
  • +10 dBm output power with low power consumption
  • External PA support
  • Concurrent mode
• Peripherals
  • Up to 3x SPI, 4x I2C
  • Up to 86x GPIOs (most of them 5V tolerant) with interrupt capabilities, 14x I/Os with independent supply down to 1.08V
  • 4x UART (ISO 7816, IrDA, modem)
  • USB – 1x USB OTG high-speed with embedded PHY
  • Audio – 1-ch SAI
  • Analog – 12-bit ADC up to 2.5 Msps, 2x ULP comparator
  • Touch sensing with up to 24x sensors for touch key, linear, and rotary touch sensors
  • 2x 32-bit timers, 4x 16-bit timers (1x for motor control), 2x 16-bit ULP timers, 2x Systick timers, RTC, 2x watchdogs
  • 8-channel DMA controller
•  Security
  • Arm TrustZone
  • AES, PKA side attack resistant
  • RTC active tamper enabled
  • SESIP Level 3 target certification: compliance with the US Cyber Trust Mark and the EU Radio Equipment Directive (RED)
  • Secure radio update and stack firmware with SBSFU/SFI
  • Authenticated firmware upgrade system
• Power management
  • Supply Voltage – 1.71 V to 3.6V
  • LDO support
  • Switched-mode power supplies (SMPS) for low-power applications
• Power Consumption (STM32WBA65PI)
  • 120 nA standby mode (with 16 wake-up pins)
  • 1.33 μA Standby mode with RTC
  • 1.15 µA Standby mode with 64-Kbyte SRAM
  • 5.30 µA Stop 2 mode with 64-Kbyte SRAM
  • 29 µA/MHz Run mode
  • Radio: Rx: 4.26 mA; Tx at 0 dBm: 5.94 mA
• Packages
  • UQFPN48 – 7 x 7 mm (0.5 mm pitch)
  • VQFPN68 – 8 x 8 mm (0.4 mm pitch)
  • WLCSP78 – 3.78 x 3.46 mm (0.35 mm pitch)
  • UFBGA121 – 6 x 6 mm (0.5 mm pitch)
• Temperature Range – -40 to 85°C or 105°C (depending on model)

The new family offers STM32WBA65/64 parts with all features, the STM32WBA63 devices that are pin-to-pin compatible with the STM32WVA55Cx, and the STM32WBA62 with essential features (Bluetooth LE only, no 802.15.4 radio; LDO only, no SMPS). An STM32WBA6M module, as opposed to just the microcontroller, is also coming in Q4 2025.

The difference between the STM32WBA65 and STM32WBA64 is that the former always ships with USB HD, LDO, and SMPS, but it’s not necessarily the case for STM32WBA64 as can be seen in the table below.

Hardware and software development tools for the STM32WBA6 series include the STM32CubeWBA STM32Cube MCU Package for STM32WBA series, the X-CUBE-MATTER software package for Matter applications, the STM32WBA65RI-based NUCLEO-WBA65RI Nucleo-64 development board and STM32WBA65I-DK1 Discovery Kit with the latter offering a wider range of peripherals with an OLED display, a digital microphone, three user LEDs, a user joystick, two 3.5 audio jacks, Arduino UNO v3 headers, a Grove connector, and a built-in STLINK-V3EC debugger/programmer.

STMicro says the STM32WBA6 MCUs are in production, and priced from $2.50 for orders of 10,000 pieces. The NUCLEO-WBA65RI development board sells for $65 on AVNet, and the STM32WBA65I-DK1 Discovery Kit for $85. Further information may be found on the product page and in the press release.

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