STMicroelectronics Accelerates Wireless Product Development

STM32Cube ecosystem extended to support STM32WB wireless MCUs

STMicroelectronics has told Incisor.TV that it is easing the design of competitively priced and power-efficient wireless equipment for applications like smart buildings, smart industry, and smart infrastructure by introducing new development tools and software for STM32WB wireless microcontrollers (MCUs).

ST’s STM32WB contains a 2.4GHz radio and Arm Cortex-M4 and Cortex-M0+ MCU on the same chip, which, the company says, eliminates numerous RF-circuit design challenges that can add time and uncertainty to a project. Just a small number of external components are needed, such as an antenna chosen for the application, to complete the hardware design. The MCU includes numerous peripherals, including a 12-bit analog-digital converter (ADC), digital interfaces, and a crystal-less USB 2.0 Full Speed interface in selected models. Protocols supported are Bluetooth LE 5.2, Zigbee, OpenThread and proprietary protocols, including combinations of such protocols with concurrent modes.

As a member of the STM32 family, ST says that the STM32WB benefits from the extensive and market-proven STM32Cube ecosystem that provides a rich selection of development tools and software.

“The STM32Cube ecosystem is already widely used and is also broadly supported by third-party developer resources that help accelerate project completion,” said Hakim Jaafar, STM32 Wireless Marketing Director, STMicroelectronics. “Our latest wireless enhancements extend the STM32 family’s capabilities to handle new demands and use cases, further enhancing the most complete and robust solution on the market.”

Strengthening support for wireless design, the STM32WB ecosystem provides all the necessary embedded software bricks and tools to get users started easily with their applications. The STM32CubeWB MCU package is loaded with many examples and brings a full set of peripheral drivers (HAL and LL), all the necessary radio stacks including Bluetooth 5.2, Zigbee 3.0, OpenThread v1.1 and 802.15.4 MAC for proprietary protocols, as well as example implementations of several concurrency models (static and/or dynamic) for these stacks.

Software tools like STM32CubeMX and STM32CubeIDE offer direct support of the radio stacks in their GUI for easy access and configuration. Users can select and configure profiles and clusters for popular standards and benefit from ready-to-use examples.

With the STM32CubeMonitor-RF evaluation tool, the ecosystem supports the development process through to setting up the radio in the customer’s environment and testing its performance. Supporting Bluetooth LE and generic 802.15.4 radio technologies, STM32CubeMonitor-RF performs transmission/reception tests and RF measurements and assists writing test scripts and testing protocol and command sequences. The latest version introduces a sniffer capability for 802.15.4 protocols to ease development of products for mesh networks.