STMicroelectronics latest STM32F446 series microcontrollers

     ST's latest STM32F446 series of microcontrollers offers designers even more application options by integrating enhanced ARM® Cortex®-M4 processing performance, 256KB or 512KB on-chip flash memory (both with 128KB RAM), energy-efficient storage expansion interfaces, and a variety of communication interfaces.

     The new product uses ST's unique ART Accelerator (Adaptive Real-Time Accelerator) technology, intelligent system architecture, and advanced 90nm flash memory technology. Standard ARM Cortex-M4 kernel processing performance is further enhanced with built-in floating point units and DSP instructions. As a result, the STM32F446 CPU has a leading 225 DMIPS processing performance, and CoreMark's test score is 608 points when executing software code in flash memory at 180MHz.

     In addition, advanced new peripherals and multi-interface efficient synchronous communication capabilities enable more intelligent and interactive industrial, scientific, medical and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. The new peripherals include a camera port, seven I2S audio ports, a Consumer Electronics Controller (CEC) for managing multiple HDMI devices, a SPDIF digital audio port, and a display parallel port. The USB module with built-in dedicated power rail reduces the minimum core supply voltage to 1.7V.

     To allow designers to seamlessly scale the system with external Memory, the STM32F446 incorporates a Flexible Memory Controller (FMC) and two four-wire SPI (QSPI) interfaces. The 90MHz FMC controller simplifies control of LCDS for SRAM, SDRAM, NOR/NAND external memory, or built-in controllers, and supports memory-remap mode for improved performance. The dual QSPI interface can operate independently of the FMC and connect up to two external SPI NOR flash memory directly or via memory mapping, supporting single or dual data rate transmission.

     Developers with strict design power constraints will benefit from the STM32F446's energy saving features. From the advanced 90nm manufacturing process combined with dynamic voltage regulation, to the extensive clock gating technology and flexible sleep mode, the STM32F446 microcontroller can reduce the operating current to 50µA in STOP mode while preserving all data information in the SRAM.

     The STM32F446 will enable designers to benefit from the extensive STM32 development ecosystem and more than 600 pin - and software-compatible ARM Cortex-M kernel based microcontrollers, including the recently announced STM32F7 family. The development ecosystem includes the easy-to-use STM32Cube open source software platform, the STM32 Nucleo Extensible prototyping board, and the STM32 Discovery Evaluation Board, supporting the mainstream development environment in the market. Examples include IAR EWARM, Keil MDK-ARM, GCC-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE), or online mbed.