Geneva, Switzerland: Microcontrollers based on the ARM Cortex-M series of processor cores just reached another milestone: STMicroelectronics recently announced it’s developed devices featuring embedded flash at 90nm process technology.
Few companies have built microcontrollers of any architecture at this process node. However, STMicro exploited existing investment in 90nm embedded flash technology for its secure and automotive microcontrollers to realize performance and cost advantages for its STM32 MCUs using the 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 core.
A limited number of customers will receive samples in the fourth quarter of 2009, followed by full production availability in 2010. ST claims that these MCUs will boost performance, increase peripheral integration, and offer added savings in power consumption, as well as provide among the highest on-chip SRAM and nonvolatile memory densities.
Developers will be able to benefit from pin-to-pin, software, and peripherals compatibility across all microcontroller variants, enabling fast and flexible development.