STMicroelectronics and Arduino have joined forces to expand the maker community's access to STM32 microcontrollers and sensors

     STMicroelectronics and Arduino, the largest open source ecosystem for education, maker and iot markets, have announced a collaboration agreement to bring the industry-leading STM32 family of microcontrollers (MCUS) and ST's sensors, power devices and communication connectivity technologies closer to the Arduino maker community. The first product of the STAR (the first two letters of ST and Arduino) development project, the STM32F469-based STAR Otto substrate, was recently unveiled to the public. Now, iot developers and makers can create high-performance graphics capabilities within their smart hardware, use easy-to-use hardware and software to develop easy-to-use touch and voice control and media streaming capabilities, and improve their application design.

     STAR Otto's 32-bit STM32F469 microcontroller brings outstanding performance to the Arduino ecosystem, including ST's Chrom-ART™ graphics accelerator and MIPI DSI display interface, with an open source graphics software library. In addition, STAR Otto also has a unique highlight, pre-integrated wireless connection module and ST MEMS microphone, with related open source driver software, can achieve audio functions. This efficient and optimized solution allows makers to focus on value-added design and development, making it easy to integrate functions while enabling a variety of smart home and smart industrial applications.

     In addition to the STAR Otto microcontroller substrate, the purpose of this collaboration is to develop a series of Arduino Shield expansion boards. The DSI display and NFC Reader Shield expansion board was launched in the second quarter of 2016, and the Sensor Shield expansion board is expected to be available in the second half of 2016. In addition, several STM32 Nucleo expansion boards and software libraries, including environmental sensors and proximity detection sensor software, have been imported into the Arduino Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to perfectly support the new STAR Otto substrate.

     Daniel Colonna, Director of Marketing, MicroController Products, ST, said: "With the addition of ST's market-leading STM32 ARM Cortex-M microcontroller product family and various sensors and other products to the Arduino world, the design, development, and manufacturing of makers has become easy, if not impossible. "Because the maker community is so passionate about smart home and smart industrial applications, we selected the STM32F469 microcontroller and other products from ST's strong portfolio with easy-to-develop audio and graphics capabilities to support these development activities."

     Federico Musto, CEO and President of Arduino, said: "Growing up with Arduino, we encourage 'kids' aged 10-100 to learn electronic technology and software programming skills, draw on the knowledge and experience of others, and create their own projects. Today, our maker community welcomes the STM32 family, and our learning range will add new features like audio input/output and touch controllers. We are confident that commercial iot companies will also use these new capabilities to easily design new smart home product applications or improve industrial automation and control products."