STM32 Roadmap? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2023, 03:31:22 pm
content: I have been designing solutions around STM32 for over 15 years, right from the F103 days. The most complex projects have been with F4, simpler applications with F1, F0, Lx, Gx, etc..As a result of the ongoing Chipageddon situation, most silicon manufacturers have lost my faith. Since my clients and I have put a huge investment into the STM32 family, I am really concerned about how ST is going to proceed with that family. A quick online search for "STM32 roadmap" didn't bring any enlightenment. The "10 year guarantee" is of not much use, when it comes to a F407. At this point and being a simple freelance engineer, I don't expect a useful answer from ST, should I address them directly.https://www.st.com/en/microcontrollers-microprocessors/stm32-32-bit-arm-cortex-mcus.htmlQuestion: is there any information out there, regarding which way ST is going to develop the STM32 family? What devices should one use for the next redesign?At the moment the F407 from the "High Performance"-range would be my biggest concern, simple because of the code complexity. At the same time I am also interested in "Mainstream"-range items. During Chipageddon we already did several redesigns to keep things going with the devices that we could procure. E.g. replacing F407 with smaller FLASH versions, or replacing F1 with any small, slow and buggy A-revision Gx's that we could scratch from the bottom of the barrel.I am aware of STM32 clones and other ARM MCU's. Let's stick to genuine ST in this thread, please.

author: Sacodepatatas
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2023, 11:24:32 pm
content: I expect them answering to this question on tomorrow's event.https://content.st.com/stm32-innovation-live.html

author: mark03
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 04:15:29 am
content: So the deadline is past, and although I don't have time to sit through a 1.5-hour video, I did take a look at the STM32 product page and tried a google news search for "stm32" and I don't see much in the way of new MCU development. (The new MPUs are interesting to some, I guess.)Still no Cortex M55 or M85 parts with the Helium SIMD. Nothing with neural coprocess (Ethos). Nothing exciting on the process front either (anyone remember FDSOI?). No foray into RISC-V either. I would need at least one of those to pique my interest.Everyone knows there is a long lag time between ARM's announcement of new cores and real silicon, but ifyou compare with Cortex M7, this has already been a longer wait than normal---the M55 was unveiled more than three years ago, and there are still not even vaporware new-product announcements from ST.That being said, they promised an update on the supply situation... Did anyone tune in to hear what they had to say? Just being able to buy parts from their current product line would be fantastic in the near term. But IMO a lack of new products in the pipeline bodes ill for the future.

author: peter-h
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 06:15:27 pm
content: Looking at chips I have used over past 30 years, I reckon the 32F407/417 will be in production for another 15-20 years.ST is in a similar ballpark to Hitachi (now Renesas). Once they get loads of design-ins they tend to keep making the parts. H8/3xx had a 25 year production run and I'd say the 32F4 has had more design-ins. Even in the heyday of sales engineers, Hitachi offered almost no help at all. Painfully, one could extract information on stuff not in the data books.And then ST will chop some package options, narrowing it down to some tiny BGA package.These 168MHz-180MHz chips deliver 10x the power of previous generations, which is nice, and necessary for stuff like USB and ETH. The later ones might do 500MHz internally but they risk getting too far ahead of market demand. The applications that need that are far fewer, and you have to charge more for the chips to maintain product spectrum differentiation; this is a key marketing requirement even if it is completely bogus in terms of production costs.And at the same time you don't want to drop prices on the older chips because nowadays that is a real no-no. The name of the game is shafting everybody who is not big enough to not get shafted. That in turn limits how much you can charge for the later chips.IMHO the most important thing is to avoid brands which drop parts faster than a whore's knickers - like Atmel

author: AVI-crak
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 06:48:30 pm
content: In Russia, everything is very simple - there are simply no ST products.We use everything that can be used, even very strange and scary solutions. The main purchase opportunity.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 07:17:46 pm
content: Quote from: AVI-crak on March 08, 2023, 06:48:30 pmWhat kind of MCUs do you use?I have seen some russian MCUs, but mostly hardened/stuff for aerospace applications.I guess you otherwise have access to chinese MCUs with not much difficulties.

author: peter-h
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 08:50:54 pm
content: Building cruise missiles and such, you don't need anything beyond a chinese ripoff of a 32F407The challenges are inertial nav (for where GPS is being messed with) and hi res IR (thermal) sensors, and all that stuff is ITAR.

author: Boscoe
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 09:04:04 pm
content: I am too keen to understand where ST is going and id love to be a fly on their wall when it comes to addressing how their company will move forward considering the dent in their reputation - their fault or not.I moved over to ESP32 for a couple of reasons however sourceability being the main one. The IDF tool chain is light years ahead of the ST offering.I personally think that MCU companies should drastically reduce their product lines and invest that RnD into tool chain and support. If you had ~15 key products with differing cores, speeds, memories and packages and epic tooling you’d have a winning offering IMHO.

author: uer166
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 09:09:48 pm
content: The most interesting series on roadmap are the Stellar MCUs, the first engineering samples are hard to come by though. 6 Cortex-R cores, where you can run different combination of lockstep, checker cores, etc. NEON and all the bells and whistles as well.https://www.st.com/en/automotive-microcontrollers/sr6g7c4.htmlI don't understand the "they don't have anything on the roadmap", these are probably the most complex, feature packed, and FMEA'd CPU/MCUs they've ever made, and are well tailored to power electronics and all kinds of automotive stuff.

author: AVI-crak
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2023, 10:26:59 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on March 08, 2023, 07:17:46 pmEverything that can swing its paws, well, except for very ancient solutions. Direction - industrial automation. Many products have become inaccessible and too expensive, even Chinese ones. You have to invent your own.

author: Sacodepatatas
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2023, 02:01:30 am
content: Quote from: Sacodepatatas on March 06, 2023, 11:24:32 pmSummarizing...-They Will focus on two families, the entry level STM32C0 for replacing the legacy STM8S designs, something weird as these aren't pin compatible with the later (and, in my opinion, it's a horrible nomenclature change, the "C" reminds me the time when regular 8-bit MCUs and EPROMs were OTP or Factory masked. A "Z" series would have rocked instead). And they'll stick developing for the STM32H5 family. For STM32F0/1/2/3/4, no dead line in a short term, but no further development of these cores. For entry level, they promote switching among C0 and G0 families depending upon the need of features (quite obvious though).-For high end MPUs of the STM32MP1 family the're strongly focusing on hardening IP security and trust level so their top MPUs have obtained several certifications (I don't remember which ones).-They keep holding the 10yr commitment for new design lines.-They are releasing a new ST-Link V3 extended with power metering and analyzing capabilities.-They might have reach some agreement with Microsoft because they are going to follow the line of development integrating their ecosystem with VScode and AzureRTOS. They will continue developing the STM32CubeIDE, but this is not their priority right now.-And that's what I have got in clear from the yesterday's meeting. Oh, one more thing left: they are very happy to anounce that they have reached agreements with their foundry parners (I guess that they refer to TSMC) so they consider the chip shortage something from the past, but It looks more like a promise than a matter of fact.

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2023, 10:37:41 am
content: @Sacodepatatas (ger. Kartoffelsack),thank you for the write-up. The part regarding the F-family fits my misgivings pretty well.Instead of giving dates, we hear that a foundry is actually signalling willingness to manufacture devices in the future. We have also heard that ST got new major customers that require huge amounts of silicon. We can assume that the first production runs will go towards those.Without further input, my recommendation to clients who require long time availability:- for existing products: keep checking the distribution channels for eventual availability of STM32 devices. Move F4-designs to feature compatible devices- keep in mind who gave the best support to small clients during Chipageddon. In my personal experience, Microchip sales/support made outstanding efforts to keep us supplied. ADI, ST, TI, only to name a few, have a lot of image reconstruction work ahead of them- in the past we used weaker STM32 to replace 8-bitters, simply to use one IDE for all projects. Now I can see us moving back to AVR/PIC, just to reduce the dependence on ST

author: Debugging
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2023, 12:52:00 pm
content: The Webinar was interesting because it kicked off talking about the expansion of capacity. the availability of STM MCU has been a pain for very long.It was like apologizing for the shortages to keep the cold heart of (small) consumers warm that supply is coming.... It may be just a little too late.... We all know the big consumer havebooked all the supply from the fabs keeping no allocations left for retail . This is easy to see as in retail you find that if order K's of MCU's you get reduced leadtimes from 6 months to a year or more. that is not the strategy of Mouser, Digikey, That is the attitude of STM, NXP and all the big MCU brands and that may have backfired for smaller companies that are now switching or have already switched over to other MCU's. some brands have chosen ther priorities and are killing SMB's, some smart brands are focusing to take their place in that market segment.Low lights:- No STM32MP15 with 4 lanes MIPI display interface- The STMH5 series is based on single core M33 and not M55. It misses out on DSP instructions and graphics like the H7 has. Memory is limited to 640K.Hopefully they will release a higher end H5 with those features. it seems something between an F/G and the H7 but with higher clock speed.A good reason to stay with the H7. M33 is already 7 years old.- No mention if the the improvement made for MP13 (see below) will also apply for MP15.- Select speakers with better English.Here are my notes:- Supply : 300mm expansion on site (France?), Italy 300mm fan ramp facility, Plans for 400m plans (if I did hear correctly), Capacity increase will happen from now till 2025- STM32MP13(5) < $4. Tj=125C, Cortex A7 1Ghz, Low power standby, 4 layer TH templates, Yocto Real time OS as alt to embedded Linux, LinuxRT Factory automationAzureRTOS , Bare metal control, Side channel., Root Of Trust, Armz trustzone, Obtain SESIP level 3,- STM32H5 adds I3C interface, 2MB Dual Flash , 640KB MAX- Integration with VSCODE (NXP announced the same for IMXRT)- WB1MMC BLE FCC/CE/Anatel precertified. can use Internal antenna and external antenna- Cube.AI Developer Cloud- STM32WBA BTLE100mhz 407 stone marks BLE 5.3 SESIP 3 + 10dBA gain. Support isochronous mode transmission and LC3 codec- Several product support SESIP Security Evaluation Standard for IoT Platforms）- CubeIDE SecureManager - iROT / PSA SESIP 3, PSA API with SMDK Secure Management Development KitHopefully they don't go into too deep in the love boat with Microsoft because Micorsoft is dropping Linux support everwhere due to their new GUI engine. Teams is also victim of that and when that continues the STM IDE may loose Linux support ? Hope not.P.S: A 10 years guarantee does not mean much when parts have soon been 5 years out of stock and with the forecast we may only see there whole situation recovered by 2025..

author: MT
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2023, 02:47:42 pm
content: and F429 are 12 years later still manufactured but sold at silly high prices and errata sheet at Rev19 and counting.

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2023, 05:22:06 pm
content: Quote from: Debugging on March 09, 2023, 12:52:00 pmDropping Eclipse and replacing it by anything Microsoft would be serious bad news for all of us who are dedicated to long time support. I'd rather go through yet another "refactoring" of the libs than seeing that happen.The availability issue extents to other ST products, which also require fab capacity.Heck, it seems that ST are hell-bent on killing all arguments in favor of sticking with them. Maybe it is time to accept that small businesses are not their target audience.

author: peter-h
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2023, 08:15:10 pm
content: QuoteI have not noticed "development" over past 2 years, other than adding support for new chips.QuoteThey never were anybody's target audience. Not since I started in this business in 1978.QuoteI gave up on their videos partly due to this. What country are they made in? There are a couple of places where not speaking English is "culturally mandatory"

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2023, 09:32:44 pm
content: The newer STM32U5 series looks also pretty cool.Not very fond of the love affair with MS. But we know how MS can be extremely commercially agressive, so "resisting" MS is probably tough shit, especially if you want to expand your IoT market.

author: peter-h
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2023, 10:52:34 pm
content: I know nothing about MS VC++ (I pay people on freelancer.com to write apps in it) but I understand that some people have used that IDE for STM chips. Cube IDE is after all not much more than an editor and a makefile generator.How one runs a debugger under VC++ I have no idea but perhaps the clunky Segger ones with the 1970s user interface will run OK.Obviously as "Cube IDE" only, not Cube MX (which all seasoned programmers seem to hate anyway, but is handy for getting the ST devkit to flash an LED).Cube IDE getting killed off would not worry programmers working for themselves but it would be a hassle if more than one person is generating code for a project, especially over a long time.

author: Sacodepatatas
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2023, 11:06:44 pm
content: QuoteI can't talk with much authority about that, but, the french lady looked too much hot for me to become aware of her speech fluency...If I can recall properly, when in the Q/A section, somebody asked if there was any H5 (or U5, don't remember exactly) with GPU capabilities, and the answer was "no" because such family was oriented for industrial environment and not for graphics...

author: peter-h
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2023, 09:01:53 am
content: Where is this video?Looking back to electronics engineers I knew since univ, all the univ dropouts ended up being sales engineers. But they were way more successful with "night life" than us real engineersNew ST products will be driven largely by large OEM requirements.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2023, 09:37:56 am
content: To be honest I'm a bit confused by ST's new MCUs.The STM32F103, STM32F207 and STM32F407 were classics that made pavement for a lot of the other MCU models. The F42x series added SDRAM and LCD support, the F446 had QuadSPI memory expansion, and then later the F7 and H7 models were introduced with Cortex-m7, more memory, SDMMC, etc. Some of these chips (in particular F7) had very similar peripherals to the F446 chips. Then ST has sort-of aa 2nd gen of MCUs in the H7 family that introduced a new memory controller e.g. OctoSPI, which follows up on quad SPI so you can utilize dual-bank FLASH and/or even HyperRAM. The U5 MCU also has this memory controller, and it's great if you want to run code from external memory. The QuadSPI FLASH controller can have a random read latency of up to 430ns on a L1 cache miss, which is an eternity (93 cycles @ 216MHz)That's all great: but meanwhile, they were also able to maintain other useful peripherals of the F4 family. For example, the F4 family has USB OTG FS+Phy and OTG HS+ULPI, which can be useful for high bandwidth PC applications. The U575, G4 and H5 series seem to have left these peripherals out and only includes a "USB FS host and device" peripheral. So I wonder: why a step backwards?All these chips are on a better level of speed/memory as the original F207/407 chip, so I don't see why these chips wouldn't be able to carry USB HS data. Maybe it's an IP licensing issue, maybe a low customer demand issue, but I find it confusing that they have omitted this peripheral for 3-ish new generations in a row. I do see they list USB HS on the newer U59x chips, which is great, but still makes me wonder why they fragment their U5 lineup with only USB FS on the U575.. If anything I'd make a guess it makes more sense to consolidate several variants to the same die design, so they can be sold from the same wafers.Ah well, can't complain and probably will never know. I never viewed ST's MCU as especially focused on 1 area, such as industrial, which IMO is a key ingredient to their widespread adoption. I think that with their mainstream line-up listing "ALL" option boxes was a great strategy. E.g. I once tried to design with a Microchip/Atmel Cortex-m7 chip, and was purely shocked that a 300MHz 100QFP device would only have 2 SPI interfaces

author: 5U4GB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2023, 10:18:18 am
content: Quote from: peter-h on March 08, 2023, 08:50:54 pmFriend of mine has done some analysis of various STM32 clones/fakes. Trust me, you really don't ever need one of those.Your competitors OTOH...

author: GromBeestje
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2023, 10:49:25 am
content: Quote from: 5U4GB on March 11, 2023, 10:18:18 amI looked into F103 clones myself, back in 2019, and I am about to have another look.Does your friend have a blog or somewhere they share their analysis?

author: 5U4GB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2023, 11:16:36 am
content: Quote from: GromBeestje on March 11, 2023, 10:49:25 amNo, sorry, just an occasional IM'd "WTF, look a this!" :-). However there's a ton of pages around that cover these things, "stm32 fake" should turn up a good set of results.

author: janoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2023, 04:09:15 pm
content: Quote from: peter-h on March 09, 2023, 10:52:34 pmVisual StudioCodeis not Visual Studio, those are two completely different products, with unfortunate naming (yay, Microsoft!). VS Code is originally built on Atom, an open source editor project and is mostly open source, with support for languages and what not in form of extensions. Some paid, some free (both as in beer and freedom).I can understand that they would want to drop Eclipse which was slow and clunky in the best of times, VS Code is lot better in that regard, with modern tooling support for developers. Its support for C/C++ (but also Python, Javascript/Typescript and a lot of other things) is very good, even first class. It is also cross-platform (unlike the "big" Visual Studio) - and doesn't need Java, which is another bonus. There is also a huge community behind it, unlike Eclipse these days.PlatformIO uses VS Code if you want a taste of what it is like.So in this case I would consider moving to VS Code from an Eclipse-based IDE as a straight upgrade, IMO. The code generators and projects should be convertible if they do it properly - VS Code doesn't have a "native" project format, like Eclipse or the Visual Studio, it completely depends on what tooling you install in it. E.g. C/C++ work is usually done using CMake-based projects but nothing prevents you from using hand-written Makefiles, if you want. The IDE will work either way.

author: MT
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2023, 05:25:32 pm
content: Quote from: 5U4GB on March 11, 2023, 10:18:18 amAs long you dont provide evidence you will sound like a used car salesman. Clones is all right, fakes not.

author: Debugging
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2023, 01:06:25 pm
content: IYDM, Taking this thread a bit back on track.Check out Charbax Embedded world W2023 live with 45 minutes of STM coverage with Roman as the presenter (in excellent English :-))They are giving out free C0 boards.1. C0 line (follow up on G)2. H5 series fully pin to pin compatible with F4 line. Secure boot/TEE, Azure & AWS IoT previsioning with a key and certificate at STM Factory level3. U5 now scalable to 4MB flash and 2.5MB SRAM for graphics framebuffer and NeoChrome GPU accelerator (upgrade from ChromArt)4. STM32WB Matter demo5. Contactless USB2 using 60GHZ ST606. STM32MP13 single core Ethercat demo's. ST will release realtime OS later this year7. Overview of GUI solution for STM products8.Developer packages now on github STM32 MCU developers zone.https://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/stm32-mcu-developer-zone.htmlhttps://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/stm32-mcu-developer-zone/embedded-software.html9. STLINKV3PWR10. AI Demo (NanoEdgeAIStudio) TOF STM32F4 CubeAI11. TSC1614 I3C H5 demo12. IMU motion sensor LSM16OIS (RISC) LS6VS16X game controller (could have the numbers wrong here)13. Motor anomaly behavior detection demoNote: Renesas showed off the first board with the M85 + Helium. STM had nothing of this, even the N6 was announced last year.Hope the N6 will have Dual USB HIGH SPEED OTG or high speed dual role USB-C (like on the H5), no external ULPI, Ethernet and RGB LCD and larger SDRAM than U5See M85 versus older MCU's:https://developer.arm.com/documentation/102787/latesthttps://www.eenewseurope.com/en/st-to-launch-its-first-neural-microcontroller-with-npu/P.S I am not affiliated with ST, just got nothing better to do than writing a summary.and oh yeah, can sign up for free C0 course and get a board (Guess that only applies in Europe and USA, leaving out the poor chip consumer elsewhere as usual)

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2023, 01:32:43 pm
content: Quote from: Debugging on March 16, 2023, 01:06:25 pmWoah. Reminding myself to put money in ST stocksnow i'm regretting not ditching work to go to EW

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2023, 01:41:12 pm
content: Quote from: JPortici on March 16, 2023, 01:32:43 pmPeople have had working demos of that for maybe 15 years, but it never seems to reach the market.

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2023, 02:24:29 pm
content: @Debugging, thanks for your post.One of my clients has pilfered the stash of F407's, which we bought at horrendous cost from some Chinese purveyer of rare merchandise. It was their call, of course - and the other project wasimportanterat that time.Anticipating the next production run of the product that stash was for, I look for "STM32 ethernet" at Digikey. No other restrictions. I don't see much that could replace an F407 with 1MB FLASH.So it is great to hear about all those new plans from ST. However, the indicator most germane to me is availability at distros, like Digikey or Farnell.Well, the show must go on. The other day I sent a new product into production, replacing STM32/M0 with ATtiny. That being said - a bunch of M0's seem to have become readily available, in the meantime, for the moment. Worse than the stockmarket.

author: peter-h
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2023, 04:36:24 pm
content: What is the value ofHSUSB?Unless you are building a hard disk type of product, and then (if on ETH) you will want to run linux on it. Maybe USB-only drives can use that.The 407 is a great chip for all-round stuff.There is a real skill (and luck) in picking a good long term bet. LM358, anybody? I got 25 years (plus 5-10 more from shady dealers, until the chinese fakes started) with the H8/323. ST will probably run the 407 for a similar total time, and there are pin and software compatible others e.g. 417 437 etc. And then there are chinese ripoffs, knockoffs, fakes, counterfeits... I reckon the 407 will be like the Z80.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2023, 04:42:57 pm
content: Quote from: peter-h on March 16, 2023, 04:36:24 pmThe full speed of USB2 may be overkill for most MCU applications, but the full speed of USB1 can be quite limiting. Especially during debug, where you might want to stream a lot of data to a PC for analysis. I think a lot of people have need for something with room to breath.

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2023, 04:56:40 pm
content: Quote from: peter-h on March 16, 2023, 04:36:24 pmusb High speed? USB Audio with more than 2x2 i/o channelsQuote from:https://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/USB.html

author: peter-h
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2023, 05:01:15 pm
content: QuoteYou can get ~ 1 megabyte per second with FS USB (CDC - a virtual COM port on the PC).With the amount of time it takes to get the ST port of FS USB running properly (CDC and MSC in my case) I would not bet on HS USB being easierAlso the PC app is limiting. If you are receiving debugs with say Teraterm, it loses data (or you need to implement the handshake) if you feed it too fast.QuoteFair enough - not my area. But maybe quite a narrow application?

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2023, 05:35:25 pm
content: Quote from: peter-h on March 16, 2023, 05:01:15 pmWow, that's really narrow thinking. On the PC side its trivial to get reliable rapid data with tools like libusb to make development easy. On the MCU side there are certainly some performance limitations, but the cores we are talking about are not that slow.

author: Debugging
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2023, 11:21:21 am
content: Regarding the roadmap at the high end MCU line and MPU's in general, I guess STM now faces an up hill battle with NXP. On the MCU side the iMX RT M7 versus the STM32H7437 (no USB-HS w/ PHY) and for MPU the STM32MP (2xA7+ 1xM4 800MHz) versus IMX93 2xA55/1xM33+1xU65 AI @ 1.7GHZ... and there was the Renesas Demo with the M85+Helium-AI

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2023, 12:44:35 pm
content: Quote from: peter-h on March 16, 2023, 05:01:15 pmThen don't do that? It's almost never wroth the hassle to use CDC. When i have lots of data i use raw Bulk endpoints, as I've finally managed how to make windows recognize my device so it gets enumared as a WinUSB device, no driver needed (the application uses libusb, but that's another story)Raw bulk endpoints: Copy raw memory to endpoint, arm endpoint. let the controller and pc figure out the rest. couldn't be simpler for the MCU. CDC devices instead, at least on the OS side, have to behave as real COM ports with all the delays and buffering

author: Sacodepatatas
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2023, 11:30:39 pm
content: Quote from: Debugging on March 16, 2023, 01:06:25 pmST hates freelancers 😞

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2023, 11:34:51 pm
content: You can be a freelancer and have a business email address.They don't do that to hate anyone, they do it mostly to avoid spam, which otherwise would be absolutely gigantic. Spam has gotten completely out of control, and even when it's well filtered (which is becoming harder and harder), it still takes the majority of the mail traffic on most exposed servers, that's horrific. So I don't blame too much.As a freelancer, I would highly suggest buying a domain name anyway, that will help a lot. For about $20/yr you can have a domain name and an email address with your own domain. For a bit more, you can host your website, but even without a website, having an email address with your own domain is a big plus.

author: Sacodepatatas
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2023, 09:09:23 pm
content: I have "buyed" a corporate domain (well, I payed 0€ because it was a promo offer), anyway after sending the registering form, ST has to review my registration request, and confirm or deny it in the next days.I've signed up for several ST events before, just by using my gmail address, and this uncertainty hasn't happened to me before.

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2023, 10:03:20 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on March 16, 2023, 01:41:12 pmhowever in the near future we are going to have gadgets with mmwave antennas in our pocket. I wondered if they were going to remove the charging port too, wireless charging AND wireless data only (brr)

author: Debugging
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2023, 07:58:36 am
content: It's not about freelancer. Tried to access with business account.Not sure they use some kind of process to only allow preference based methods based on location, company name etc..They probably ran out of free sample C0 stock.Perhaps they could consider having separate sessions for different regions in the world...Would not mind the loss of opportunity to get a C0 board that we probably never would be able to get anyhow, but the course would be interesting.We appreciate your interest in our workshop on STM32C0: Your next generation 8-bit MCU is a 32-bit, taking place on Thursday, March 23, 2023.As you may be aware, this is a complimentary workshop with limited seating. Registrations are based on space availability. Due to an overwhelming response, our capacity has been reached and, unfortunately, we are unable to confirm your registration.... for mmWave, they say it is for automotive, but actually Google, Amazon and the likes don't want your address, they want know if you are in the kitchen, toilet or bedroom to make your life easier and solve all the problems you don't have... Take a look at what Nordic has been working on as well for WIFI to help those big companies...AndAs a freelancer, I would highly suggest buying a domain name anyway, that will help a lot. For about $20/yr you can have a domain name and an email address with your own domain. For a bit more, you can host your website, but even without a website, having an email address with your own domain is a big plus.Yes do that, some companies already refuse g-mail addresses.. in the end, it won't help those companies much to limit the number the total of number requests much because those that really want support, are serious folks that will or may have their own domain anyhow

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2023, 09:49:09 am
content: pssst - sacodepatatas.es was still available a minute ago...As others have mentioned - your own domain plus email plus some gigabytes of webspace, with PHP and databases, should be available for less than 50 tax-deductable Euros per year. (just one example, and most certainly not the best: strato.de, who also hosts .com-addresses, should Spanish providers be overly expensive)Forget Facebook or Twitter or whatever - your own internet domain is the backbone of your online presence.

author: Sacodepatatas
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2023, 03:06:14 pm
content: Quote from: Debugging on March 22, 2023, 07:58:36 amBelieve or not, after some days of waiting, I have received a confirmation email, hence, i'm in. However I did not choose the yesterday's session but the one of april 20th, because yesterday I had to be aware of the surgery procedure that my mom was undergoing (all went fine).Quote from: harerod on March 22, 2023, 09:49:09 amI wouldn't like to kidnap such domain name that is very suitable for the spanish fandom of Marilyn Monroe 😂

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2023, 11:16:37 am
content: Quote from: GromBeestje on March 11, 2023, 10:49:25 amIt's a space I am actively trying to avoid as it looks like a massive money pitI was in that space back when you couldn't buy "drones", the closest thing would have been a DIY tri-copter. The big thing then was "FPV", using a 12V CCTV camera and 2.4Ghz video transmitter. There was a thread where someone brought up the various regulations in the US. For example, selling a product which amounts of a "guidance system", especially if you are exporting it, could get you into some hot legal water. They ever produced the US government policy documentation/references stating that an airborne navigation system capable of following multiple waypoints to a destination was "restricted". This was while 13 yo. kids where doing exactly that using micro-controllers and GPS navigation units!

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2023, 10:34:27 pm
content: Quote from: Boscoe on March 08, 2023, 09:04:04 pmCan you maybe post over here and let me know what you mean?https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/professional-docs-and-toolchain-for-esp32-in-commercial-product/

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2023, 08:07:01 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on March 16, 2023, 04:42:57 pmFYI, “Full Speed” in the context of USB doesn’t mean “the entire possible speed” as a description, but rather specifically means the 12Mbps mode. Subsequent USB versions don’t redefine the speeds, just add on more, so for example, USB 1.1 Full Speed is 12Mbps, and USB 2.0 Full Speed is also 12Mbps.Low speed: 1.5MbpsFull speed: 12MbpsHigh speed: 480MbpsAnd then I can’t keep track of the official nomenclature in USB 3.0 and later, since it was always confusing, and keeps changing…

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2023, 10:42:53 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on March 26, 2023, 08:07:01 pmI did say "the full speed off USB2", not "full speed USB". Because of funky terminology in the USB specs those are quite different things. They love funky terms in USB specs. Can USB2 send data at anything like 12Mbps (FS) or 480Mbps (HS)? That's also funky terminology.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2023, 12:04:03 am
content: Quote from: coppice on March 26, 2023, 10:42:53 pmWhat are you asking exactly?

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2023, 05:16:18 am
content: QuoteUSB2 added the 480Mbps "High Speed."USB3 adds "Super Speed" (5Gbps)USB3.2 adds "SuperSpeed+" (10Gbps, or 20Gbps using multiple lanes.)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0#USB_3.2

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2023, 05:29:25 am
content: Quote from: coppice on March 26, 2023, 10:42:53 pmTerminology is just terminology. Everything has history. USB has a long one already.The missing link here is the low speed, without which we can't understand why they chose 'Full Speed' in the first place.USB initially allowed two speeds: low-speed (1.5Mbps) and full-speed (12Mbps). The "full" was obviously to signify the full (max) bandwidth possible on then USB.Then USB 2.0 introduced high-speed (480Mbps) while still being backwards compatible.Then USB 3.0... as westfw said.It's not funky, it's just that it has bagage, like everything else. But if you don't use the standard terminology, people are likely not to understand what you mean.

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2023, 09:30:37 am
content: Speaking of terminology: I still remember a cover page of the German computer magazine "c't" calling that new interface: "Useless Serial Bus". I have used that term ever since.At that time developers had to upgrade their machines to Win98 to get USB support. We had just started selling our new medical device (dozens of EEG channels), when Intel decided to drop out of the USB device chip game and we had to redesign the hardware and rewrite the firmware around the Cypress EZ-USB. Nobody cared for another USB device implementation in 8051 assembly, which led so the firmware being rewritten in Keil C. Windows driver development for that beast was even worse, blue screens galore. During that development we saw Win98, then ME and finally the rather decent XP.Since then USB development has matured considerably.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2023, 01:21:59 pm
content: Quote from: harerod on March 27, 2023, 09:30:37 amI think it got the name Useless Serial Bus because for several years it was entirely useless. Numerous peripheral products, like mice and scanners, were developed, manufactured and died in the market because there was no way to use them. Peripheral makers must have lost a fortune on this. I used to see so many nice polished products in the computer malls in HK, being test marketed to a public that couldn't make use of them. Millions of PCs had that socket on the back that "was for the future", but definitely not for the present. Intel eventually joked that the US beat the Japanese in WW2 faster than the computer industry got USB into a marketable shape.The original USB specs were very interesting in what they defined and did not define. Standardised serial ports? Nope. For that legacy reason we still have a bunch of incompatible drivers for those. Standardised ways to take a telecoms E1 or T1 carrying ISDN, and terminate it into a PC, with full plesiochronous support. Yep, 100% defined for the handful of people who might ever use it..

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2023, 04:05:36 pm
content: Well, USB-2-Serial became much simpler when FTDI issued their first FT232's. All we had to do was connect a serial EEPROM to host our VID/PID. Brings back memories of FTDI's minuscule stall at Electronica(?), staffed with actual Scottish technical expertise (Andrew?, Steward?).

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2023, 04:39:57 pm
content: Quote from: harerod on March 27, 2023, 04:05:36 pmMy experience was Prolific USB serial ports suddenly became.....er..... prolific, and their driver was already on most machines when you plugged into them.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2023, 06:36:22 pm
content: I forgot to add USB 4.0.They have changed the naming convention and that goes: USB4 20 Gbps and USB4 40 Gbps. More explicit.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2023, 06:44:38 pm
content: Quote from: harerod on March 27, 2023, 04:05:36 pmWhat do you again mean by "USB 2". FTDI's first chips were compatible with USB 1.1 only AFAIR.And yes, that made adding USB to a device much easier. They had also released a parallel FIFO version at about the same time (FT245), which allowed nearly the full bandwidth in USB FS, about 1 MBytes/s.You could do the same with Cypress EZ-USB MCUs at the time which were pretty much the only other "simple" solution available, although it was more involved and didn't come with usable drivers.FTDI's first USB 2.0 HS (high speed) came much later, around 2007 IIRC. Of course to get the benefit of HS you would need to use a parallel FIFO mode. Even on their latest chips, the UART <-> USB function tops at 3 Mbits/s, for which the bandwidth of FS is enough.And then they released USB 3.0 SS chips (FT6xx). At this point, alternatives (such as Cypress FX3) are much more expensive actually. I think there are some chinese interface chips supporting USB SS, but I don't have references in mind.I don't know if they'll ever release chips allowing the new speeds of USB 4. That's freaking fast.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2023, 08:04:58 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on March 27, 2023, 06:44:38 pmI suspect that by “USB-2-Serial”, they meant “USB-to-serial”. Just a very unwise choice of spelling, methinks.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2023, 08:28:29 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on March 27, 2023, 08:04:58 pmOuchBut at least maybe the history I gave helped some remember/or be aware of the offering.

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2023, 09:22:06 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on March 27, 2023, 08:04:58 pmDon't do that to me, please.

author: alm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2023, 09:28:22 pm
content: Quote from: harerod on March 27, 2023, 09:22:06 pmYou can list your preferred pronoun in your profile / signature if you care that much

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2023, 05:43:46 am
content: Quote from: harerod on March 27, 2023, 09:22:06 pmSo… don’t use English to you?!?In English, the singular ”they” is a standard way of referring to someone whose gender you do not know. That usage is well-documented, going back to at least the 14th century.(This is, incidentally, precisely the reason “they” has also become the dominant gender-neutral pronoun, beating all the invented ones like “ze”: it’s only a minor extension to a familiar usage. But that doesn’t mean it’s lost its original meaning!)

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2023, 01:06:36 pm
content: Tooki, I simply love our occasional exchanges about linguistics.Sure, a lazy "they" is one viable device, in case you couldn't possibly know the referee's sex and wanted to churn out another quick post. However, one might venture that in a forum like this, the oldfangled "generic he" might be an even better bet.Since I signed our private exchanges with my given name and having set my gender in my forum profile, I permit myself to politely ask you to do this old grumpy engineer the courtesy of using that information.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_in_Englishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_theyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_languages_with_gendered_third-person_pronouns#Generic_he

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2023, 06:29:09 pm
content: Quote from: harerod on March 28, 2023, 01:06:36 pmAs a native English speaker, I respectfully decline to strike a correct, valid usage of generic English terminology from my vocabulary (even if just for one person). I’m happy to use “he” referring to you in the future, but can’t guarantee I will remember the username and make the association.Honestly, I didn’t remember your username or name, and I’m not going to check someone’s profile to see if they happen to have set their gender. It simply doesn’t matter that much when a perfectly serviceable solution has been in continuous use for 700 years.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 30, 2023, 08:49:20 am
content: I had a meeting with a local manager today and relevant SMEs, they were epic.I had a meeting with a local manager today and relevant SMEs, he/she was epic.It matters. Plurality.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 30, 2023, 08:56:10 am
content: Quote from: paulca on March 30, 2023, 08:49:20 amIrrelevant to the issue at hand, it’s the well established singular they.

author: gmb42
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 30, 2023, 09:26:59 am
content: Can all the pronoun discussion be moved to the appropriate place (or even better deleted) and then we can get back to discussing the STM32 roadmap?

author: Sacodepatatas
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2023, 11:40:06 pm
content: Quote from: Debugging on March 22, 2023, 07:58:36 amI've followed the course in English the past 20th of this month although i couldn't pay so much attention because of personal matters, so i wanted to watch the course again once being more relaxed). During the course we were told that the 3h recording would be available in a brochure sent to our emails besides the link for ordering the Nucleo Board samples. That was 4 days back. Still no news from ST Micro besides some email advertisements regarding more courses. I'm starting to think that i've been mocked. But, let's wait some more days...

author: peter-h
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2023, 09:47:58 am
content: QuoteAt least one of these is still sitting somewhere in Scotland, and replying to emails.The commercial side of FTDI is long gone, to Taiwan I believe.I still use these chips but the FT232 was replaced by the much cheaper FT231. FTDI are today a really opportunistic outfit and are gauging people with FT232 pricing. Mouser have got stuck with vast stocks of FT232 when the chip shortage bubble blew up; they will probably flog them off to the 2nd tier disti cowboys in the US and elsewhere. Off topic anyway.32F4 USB works OK, with the ST Cube IDE supplied code and with lots of patches (found on google) added. I have a pretty solid CDC and MSC running. I would have never even dreamt of doing USB without that code. It's horrible.QuoteWhat if you actuallywanta VCP under windoze? It's a very simple API for apps to use. The delays probably don't matter in most real applications.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2023, 07:50:37 pm
content: Definitely use a FT230X or FT231X these days. They're cheaper, support more, draw less power and have not been cloned whatsoever (yet at least) that I know of, so you're relatively safe.

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2023, 03:19:41 am
content: QuoteWell, aside from the fact that they were pretty hard to get; not carried by the usual distributors...

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2023, 07:30:59 am
content: Quote from: westfw on April 26, 2023, 03:19:41 amWell, I guess we (a medical devices outfit with a couple of hundred employees) got them either directly from FTDI or via our standard distributor Spoerle. Fascinating how stories a quarter century old stick in the memory.STM32 availability seems to be improving. Only yesterday ST's website told me that 2000 units of a certain component were available from Future. After clicking on the provided link, I was told that Future is sold out and awaits new stock by end of this year. Really smooth database links...

author: Sacodepatatas
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2023, 06:59:48 pm
content: Quote from: Sacodepatatas on April 23, 2023, 11:40:06 pmAfter 8 days, the e-mail message with the aforementioned links eventually arrived to my e-mail box. The recording of the workshop has been uploaded to Youtube by ST, but the link has not been published for listing (although it's publicly accesible). I'll respect the ST's will and won't put a link here in this post, but I might reply to any PM asking for it, with a reply containing the link.

author: grantb5
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2023, 09:46:50 pm
content: Quote from: Debugging on March 16, 2023, 01:06:25 pmThank you!I'm in the opposite camp as the OP. I'm just starting with STM32 but did one learning project with F103 because of the plethora of resources for it. I'm actually looking for a fairly cheap *new* STM32, like $5-ish in quantity. The U575 looks good price-wise compared to the older parts,BUT I need a pretty large TFT LCD. I don't see any STM32's that I can afford that would have enough memory for an 800x480 TFT compared to say, ESP32, but I don't want to go the ESP32 route. The H563 also looks good and is a bit cheaper. Most of the gee whiz stuff on those micros I don't need (I do need USB Device, full speed).

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2023, 10:10:33 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on March 27, 2023, 06:44:38 pmthe HS chips can do 12MBaud

author: Debugging
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 18, 2023, 04:15:59 am
content: More information related to the title of this topic:https://live.vhall.com/v3/special/detail?id=744067034You can view the ST Event in China last week, There is English translation for the key note, click on "English" after selecting the videoUnfortunately, no PDF slides.(yet?)ST seems to to a better marketing job with much more detail for the folks in China than for those elsewhere. Perhaps there are more product design house customers there than anywhere else ?Hard to find, but there is the STM32MP2 series announcement with 2x GB, USB 3.0 and 4 lane MIPI (at least that is what Yahoo news said about MIPI and it is not in the ST flyer, so Yahoo seem to know more than what is on the ST website)Personally, don't prefer such marketing practices with very limited detail. Why not just get over it, announce the whole feature spec at once with a roadmap of availability instead of a half baked flyer.https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stmicroelectronics-introduces-second-generation-industry-070000434.html

author: Debugging
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 18, 2023, 08:30:14 am
content: AND AS USUAL THE SAME ANSWER.This is becoming a systemic issue. ST changed to use a BOT that checks IP or bases to auto-reject ?We appreciate your interest in our workshop on STM32H5: Ultimate combination of performance, integration and affordability, taking place on Tuesday, May 23, 2023.As you may be aware, this is a complimentary workshop with limited seating. Registrations are based on space availability. Due to an overwhelming response, our capacity has been reached and, unfortunately, we are unable to confirm your registration.If you have any questions, please contact us on the dedicated ST Community.

author: Eternauta
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 18, 2023, 11:43:47 am
content: The peripherals of the new microprocessor family are truly complete. There is also PCIe and LVDShttps://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/campaigns/microprocessor-stm32mp2.html?icmp=tt32627_gl_pron_may2023

author: Debugging
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2024, 03:48:05 pm
content: Per the ST "Event" this week, MP2's will now become (more) available in 2025. It seems only some customer have some on hand. So that will be 2 years from announcement to actual availability, whatever this "availability" may actually mean. (retail ?). and still no USB 3.0... These two slides are everything that seems available now regarding MP2.

author: mark03
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2024, 04:36:28 pm
content: Wow, is the event over now? I was just on the STM32 product page and I see the new STM32U0 series listed, but nothing else. That could be interesting.OTOH, none of the cutting edge stuff that I listed last year (see below) is even in vaporware phase, except for STM32N6 which has now been in "pre-launch" for TWO YEARS without even a data brief to summarize what is inside. This suggests they are having real problems getting new silicon out the door.I will continue to use STM32 for the foreseeable future because I can't stomach having to reverse-engineer undocumented MCUs from China just to make them work. I am starting to suspect, however, that ST made a strategic decision to cede the MCU market to others, and is just milking their current portfolio for as long as they can. The future is bleakARM must also be worried. For anyone keeping track, it has now been more than *four* years since Cortex M55 was announced and there is still no silicon from the big players, not even pre-release announcements, unless you count coprocessors on Cortex A's. We do have M85 from Renesas but no hint of competition from anyone else. This is a much longer product cycle than M7 which makes you wonder if the new cores with Helium will ever see the light of day.Quote from: mark03 on March 08, 2023, 04:15:29 am

author: IOsetting
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2024, 05:23:22 pm
content: STM32F103 and STM32F407 still work perfectly in most applications, with plenty of alternative chips in the market, I don't see a reason to move to new product lines. As for Arm and ST, their biggest challenge comes from RISC-V. The market has been quite different in China mainland after the pandemic.

author: grantb5
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2024, 05:54:04 pm
content: Quote from: IOsetting on March 20, 2024, 05:23:22 pmEntering this STM32 MCU game late, I was taught on the F103, but realize that's very old now. I really like the U5 series, but it's just way too big a leap for me at this point. What was the roadmap after the F4? I get the impression it was F1 -> F4 but then what? I'd like to make a couple of generational leaps from the F1 without going too crazy. My primary usage is basic USB peripheral, but I have a LOT of stuff hanging off of GPIOs, so I appreciate things like BSRR and bit-banding (the latter of which seems to have disappeared somewhere along the line).

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2024, 08:33:28 pm
content: Quote from: IOsetting on March 20, 2024, 05:23:22 pmI don't know what "most applications" mean. This kind of assertion is always odd. What is the definition of "most applications"?STM32 MCUs have made big gaps in terms of performance and, particularly, power consumption in more recent series than the venerable F1 and F4. If low-power is a requirement, then the F1 and F4 are certainly out of the equation, so in itself is a good reason for considering more recent series.There are alternatives for sure, but again, when it comes to low-power and the L4/L5/U5 series, not that many either. Very few actually that come even close.I somehow would translate your above assertion to "STM32F103 and STM32F407 can be had dirt cheap in China and we don't see any reason to use any more recent STM products, as they are much more costly for us. And we don't particularly care for low power anyway."And with that said, with anything that doesn't require ultra-low power, I now like the WCH RISC-V-based products, but their peripherals tend not to be as flexible as what we get on STM32 MCUs in general, at least the more recent ones, as WCH tends to "clone" STM32 peripherals from older generations.

author: IOsetting
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2024, 01:05:24 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on March 20, 2024, 08:33:28 pmYou are right, low-power is a con of old series.Quote from: SiliconWizard on March 20, 2024, 08:33:28 pmIt's not quite true that, in addition to price, we also need to consider the stability of the supplier's delivery as well as alternative options in extreme cases. If we put our bets on ST's new product line, there will be a significant risk.

author: jnk0le
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2024, 11:23:43 pm
content: Quoter0p2 revision in renesans has some serious bugs. Others probably waited for better revisions.e.g. 3175626 (crash right after enabling DCACHE, 100% reproducible (at least when exec from SRAM)) has been confirmed by ARM only by february this year. r1p1 revision is probably around april.STM32N6:https://www-armbbs-cn.translate.goog/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=125949&extra&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp- cortex-m55 (known from previous leaks)- 600MHz core- 300MHz NPU- 64K ITCM- 128K DTCM- ROM/RAM is fake, looks like they put some sections at typical RAM address as to debug without flash loader implemented in debuggers (did the same thing for RA8)There should be at least 2MiB of SRAM (0x1ffffff diff), probably more due to NPU.OP claims release is Dec 24 which is an unlikely date due to chritstmasSTM32V8:https://www.cnblogs.com/armfly/p/17417211.html- cortex-m85- 4 MiB flash- that "EEPROM" is fake. It's at typical "non-secure" alias of FLASHall look like leaks from cube packages

author: jnk0le
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2024, 02:43:18 pm
content: Quote from: jnk0le on October 26, 2024, 11:23:43 pmhttps://www.st.com/content/dam/static-page/events/ces-2024/33-efficient-ai-detection.pdf- SRAM should be around 4 MiB (>3MiB)- 10 MiB suggest an external flashhttps://community.st.com/t5/stm32-summit-q-a/when-will-the-stm32n6-chip-be-available-for-edge-ai-applications/td-p/652576- release claimed to be novemberEDIT:https://community.st.com/t5/stm32-summit-q-a/do-you-plan-to-add-video-codec-h-264-h265-to-mcu-h7/td-p/652404- hardware h264 encoderQuote from: jnk0le on October 26, 2024, 11:23:43 pmhttps://www.eejournal.com/article/st-rolls-a-new-fd-soi-microcontroller-with-phase-change-memory-pcm-for-automotive-applications/- cortex-m85 on the 18nm FD-SOIhttps://community.st.com/t5/stm32-summit-q-a/stm32n6-and-general-mcu-questions/td-p/652193- "attacking 1 GHz"

author: uer166
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2024, 08:09:48 am
content: I wonder what that NPU memory setup is. Obviously they can't store the weights in regular SRAM, as that would load the crap out of the AHB buses and potentially contend with CPU.Is it its' own dedicated memory? Or perhaps a couple extra SRAMs with their own ports and DMA/bus to NPU?

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2024, 09:57:07 am
content: Seems like ARM describes a standardized NPU peripheral:https://developer.arm.com/documentation/102023/0000/Introduction-to-the-NPU/Description-of-the-neural-processing-unit-I imagine it to be a binary bitstream of somekind you'll have to load into the peripheral, with the weights and a computational program (unfolding of the neural layers into matrix multiply, add, etc.). The introduction says there is an open source tool that can produce a command stream, which I suspect takes a neural network (or trains it) and then outputs this bitstream for the NPU.From the diagrams it looks like the NPU will pull input buffers from the main bus via a (it's own?) DMA engine into a scratchpad, then do the matrix computations internally on them, and publish the final result out via DMA or maybe some register set (e.g. if the neural network only publishes a few values).ST's marketing slides talks about a 75x speed up from presumably a standard C implementation. Even if you can do only 1 FP16 MAC per 6 cycles (2 loads, 1 mac, 1 store, 1 decrement, 1 branch-if-not-zero), then the NPU engine will have be 12x faster than that. So that makes me guess the NPU has some 256-bit vector ALU inside, maybe even more.TinyYoloV2 uses about 6.97Billion FLOPS for 416x416 images resulting in 207fps. STM32N6 can do about 18fps => 600M FLOPS.I suppose there is some overhead involved with swapping out matrix weights for large networks.I wonder how long it takes till someone will abuse the NPU for DSP too. We have had SIMD on Cortex-m4, but since the registers are still only 32-bit wide, it's use is a bit limited. I suppose you could also load a matrix that treats the "matrix" operations as mostly vectored (weights only on diagonal) and implement FIR, IIR, matched filters, mixers, etc. like that.

author: mark03
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2024, 10:23:07 pm
content: Quote from: hans on November 07, 2024, 09:57:07 amThis. I am not a complete AI-skeptic (I do think there is a bubble), but I have personally zero interest in embedded NPUs for their intended purposeFrom cursory skimming of data sheets it has not been clear to me if DSP [ab-]uses are possible. E.g. can I somehow use 16-bit ints or is the hardware limited to 16-bit floats.Back to the thread topic, this STM32V8 sounds great, but as the only verifiable source is the somewhat vague comment by an ST employee on their community forums, I take that with a big grain of salt. STM32N6 has been way more concrete than that for 2-3 years already. The production delays have been so extreme that I assume ST ran into major problems with errata, orThat in turn has dampened my enthusiasm somewhat.

author: jnk0le
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2024, 07:12:11 pm
content: we've got the leak from ST itself.https://www.st.com.cn/content/st_com/zh/arm-32-bit-microcontrollers.htmlhttps://archive.is/oObI0(all links inside are 404)- 800MHz, M55- 4200 KB sram (total)- BGA only- "gigabit ethernet with TSN"- no internal flash

author: jnk0le
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 09, 2024, 09:35:16 pm
content: N6 has been released just now.https://www.st.com/en/microcontrollers-microprocessors/stm32n657x0.htmlQuote from: mark03 on November 07, 2024, 10:23:07 pmBad news, NPU is as documented as neochrom. You can similarly use it only by proprietary binary blobs.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 09, 2024, 09:42:31 pm
content: Quote from: jnk0le on December 09, 2024, 09:35:16 pmToo bad, that is pretty common for NPUs regardless of the vendor and kinda prevents using them for any other purpose.More generally speaking, all AI-related stuff seems to be fiercely protected at the moment (which can be understood by the gigantic investments).

author: aeg
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 10, 2024, 03:26:32 am
content: The STM32N6 looks like a beast!I wonder if it has the same lifetime limitations as the 45nm STM32G4/STM32H7?

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 10, 2024, 08:11:08 am
content: Quote from: aeg onTodayat 04:26:32I hadn't seen the AN5738 "STM32G4 Series lifetime estimates" before. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.That AN would be even more useful, if ST had added some typical operating conditions (power dissipation, ambient temperature, layout) with resulting junction temperatures. With the AN in mind the user has to cross reference the datasheet and do power estimates by hand.I am really looking forward to water cooled MCU applications.

author: wek
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 10, 2024, 08:57:29 am
content: QuoteNah, you just get used to the idea of throwaway electronics.JW

author: harerod
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 10, 2024, 09:56:00 am
content: Quote from: wek on December 10, 2024, 08:57:29 am"throwaway electronics" - my thought exactly, when I read that AN.I really enjoy the fact that most of my designs are expected to work flawlessly 20 years down the road.

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 10, 2024, 12:30:02 pm
content: also, failure due to what?Flash degradation?CPU degradation?

author: wek
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 10, 2024, 05:39:02 pm
content: Quote from: JPortici on December 10, 2024, 12:30:02 pmIMOelectromigration.Note, that I am not ST, not TSMC, not a microelectronics insider, so what I wrote there is pure speculation.JW

author: jnk0le
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2025, 03:20:03 pm
content: new leak on google/youtube tiktok:https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8mOofvhMzX0The upcoming STM family (V8 according to chinese leaks) will be boasted as "flash-less" despite having program memory (most likely thatePCM)We could speculate that it would turn out to be some kind of "SRAM-less" (except the TCM/cache). ie. PCM used for persistent storage as well as volatile due to being denser and nearly as fast as those large SRAMs. (just like the FRAM based msp430 can operate)