- STMicro showcased its three key wireless microcontroller series for different wireless communication needs — STM32WL, STM32WB, and STM32WBA.
- The company discussed the list of tools and resources provided by STMicro for wireless technologies available for developers.
Chip manufacturer STMicroelectronics held a press briefing to showcase its wireless microcontroller series and ecosystem and held demonstrations. The event featured presentations by Olivier Lardy, senior manager marketing and applications, wireless connectivity Asia-Pacific region, and Mohit Arora, wireless marketing manager, South Asia, and India region.
Lardy discussed the chipmaker’s range of wireless microcontrollers, highlighting three key series – STM32WL, STM32WB, and STM32WBA – for different wireless communication needs.
Lardy explained that the STM32WL, ideal for applications requiring extended range and low-power communication capabilities, combined an Arm Cortex-M4 core with a sub-GHz radio transceiver, along with multiple wireless protocols, including LoRa, Sigfox, and proprietary protocols.
For IoT applications, Lardy brought forth the STM32WB series, which integrates an Arm Cortex-M4 core and a Cortex-M0+ core to form a dual-core architecture, along with a dual-band radio supporting Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and IEEE 802.15.4 protocols. Commenting on the plans for the WB series, Lardy said, “This family is focused on BLE and brings a lot of innovation. We are transitioning from CortexM4 to Cortex M33 for higher performance and increased security.”
Lastly, Lardy discussed the STM32WBA series, unveiled earlier in March this year, designed specifically for BLE 5.3-enabled applications. He said the STM32WBA series offered high data rates, long-range capability, anti-tamper detection, and low-power messaging for wireless IoT solutions.
Elaborating on the STM32 wireless ecosystem, Arora added to the discussion about the list of tools and resources for developers. Arora specifically highlighted the BLE 5.3 platform, offering advanced features and capabilities for Bluetooth Low Energy development.
Arora further discussed the STM32WBA development board, with the Nucleo 64-pin daughter board, for easy prototyping and evaluation of wireless solutions. He discussed integrating Matter, formerly the Connected Home over IP project, with the STM32WB microcontrollers. He said this integration allowed developers to build connected devices using a standardized, interoperable, secure protocol.
Arora elaborated on the ecosystem for firmware development and said ST provided a code generation tool, CubeMX. “You start by finding the boards and selecting the peripheral. You connect it to the ST software distribution server, download various packages, integrate, and configure those packages, configure the peripherals in the GUI and then generate the code,” he said. He added that the code developed on the STM32Cube standard can easily be ported to different ST products, including wireless MCUs.
Arora also spoke about ST’s incorporation of Matter in its products. “Currently, we offer Matter with STM32WB, a 2.4GHz dual-core SoC that allows you to run both Bluetooth and IEEE 802.15.4. at the same time. For these 2.4GHz mesh devices, Matter uses open thread on IEEE 802.15.4 as the IP-compliant backbone; parallel, the same radio is used with Bluetooth for the commissioning purpose before the device is configured to join a matter network,” he said.
Arora concluded the discussion by introducing the StevalAstra1B and Astra platforms, which provide reference designs and tools to accelerate the development of smart home applications using the STM32 wireless series, followed by a live demonstration of all the technologies discussed in the briefing.
