Floating-Point Digital Signal Controllers Cost Less Than $1

STMicroelectronics says its STM32F301/302/303 microcontrollers, based on the 72-MHz ARM Cortex-M4 core with floating-point unit (FPU), are the first to come in under one dollar in volume production. The devices combine the ARM Cortex-M4 with analog peripherals to enhance integration to entry-level mixed-signal control applications. The STM32F301 features 32 to 64 kbytes of on-chip flash and 16 kbytes of SRAM. The STM32F302 an STM32F303 extend flash density from 32 to 256 kbytes (the company will introduce STM32F3 devices with up to 512 kbytes of flash later this year). Also, the 303 delivers higher (90 DMIPS) performance thanks to core-coupled memory (CCM-SRAM), which gives a “routine boost” equivalent to more than 100-MHz CPU frequency execution from flash. The new sub-30-ns comparators combine with a 5-Msample/s, 12-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) that supports oversampling to allow for 16-bit resolution at 20 ksamples/s and 18 bits at 1.2 ksamples/s.

STMICROELECTRONICS INC.