ST maximizes accessibility of STM32 MCUs with extremely low-cost and highly featured development environment

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND: STMicroelectronics has announced an extremely low-cost development environment maximizing access to its STM32 microcontroller families built using the ARM Cortex-M3 processor core, which is optimized for embedded applications.

The environment combines the Atollic TrueSTUDIO/STM32 development tool, which can be downloaded free-of-charge with no limitations on code size or usage time, and ST's ST-LINK debug probe to connect to the target via USB.

For a low initial investment, just $21 for ST-LINK, a wider variety of design starts, including tentative and low-volume product concepts, can benefit from the high performance, low power and rich features of the STM32 family comprising more than 70 software-, pin-, and peripheral-compatible variants.

Atollic TrueSTUDIO/STM32 uses the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE) framework, and features a GNU compiler/debugger for ARM processors. Pre-compiled runtime libraries are also included in the free-of-charge Lite version of the tool.

Developers can access more extensive capabilities by purchasing Atollic TrueSTUDIO/STM32 Pro, a low-cost environment with extensive capabilities including C++ language support, PC-based build/debug tools allowing development before embedded hardware is available, graphical tools including UML diagram editors, and collaboration features such as version control and bug/task management.

ST's STM32 product lines make up one of the industry's largest ranges of Cortex-M3 devices currently in production, and have gained thousands of design wins. Since first announcing the low-cost Access Line and 72MHz Performance Line devices in mid-2007, ST has added the Access USB Line combining low-cost features with USB connectivity and the Connectivity Line combining Ethernet, CAN, USB and audio peripherals. The range of more than 70 STM32 devices spans package options from 36 pins to 144 pins and Flash densities from 16 to 512 Kbytes.

The ST-LINK debug probe is available from stock at a resale price of $21. Atollic TrueSTUDIO/STM32 can be downloaded from http://www.atollic.com/index.php/download at a price of euro 995 for TrueSTUDIO/STM32 Pro, or free of charge for TrueSTUDIO/STM32 Lite.