With the development of technology, intelligent and cos-efficient solutions are the trend for future electronic devices. Microcontroller is an microcircuit that acted as a special purpose computer. Due to its advantage of high performance and low cost, MCU is become ideal for variety of embedded solutions. The applications include consumer electronics, industrial control, automotive applications, and security applications, etc.
Microcontroller integrated microprocessor, RAM, ROM, and other peripheral devices. It captures input, processes data, and generates output to execute an order. The unique feature of the Microcontroller is programmable. With the development of MCU, the performance and program speed are improving. According to the data bus width, MCU can be divided into 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit. This article is to discuss the 32-bit MCU.
32-bit MCUs based on ARM Cortex-M core are popular in the embedded market. ARM Cortex-M series of processor core is optimized for energy-efficient and deterministic operation.
The Arm Cortex-M3 core processor is suitable for high-performance, real-time processing in cost-constrained applications, achieving the best balance of performance and cost. It not only meets the performance requirements of entry-level applications, but also is suitable for general-purpose applications. It can simplify development while reducing costs, so it is widely used.
The Arm Cortex-M4 processor core is the first in the Cortex-M lineup to feature dedicated digital signal processing (DSP) IP units. It is mainly suitable for digital signal control applications requiring high-efficiency, easy-to-use control and signal processing capabilities, such as IoT, motor control, industrial and home automation, power management, healthcare and wellness applications.
The following will takes STM32F407VGT6 as an example.
STM32F407VGT6 of STM32 series is based on the high performance Arm®Cortex®-M4 32-bit RISC core operating at a frequency of up to 168 MHz. Features a Floating point unit (FPU) signal precision, it is enable to support all Arm signal precision data-processing instructions and data types. Further more, it implements a full set of DSP instructions and a memory protection unit (MPU) which enhances application security.
It incorporates high-speed embedded memories of up to 1 Mbyte Flash and up to 192 Kbytes of SRAM. Features an extensive range of enhanced I/Os and peripherals connected to two APB buses, three AHB buses and a 32-bit multi-AHB bus matrix. Equips with standard and advanced communication interfaces include three I2Cs, three SPIs, two I2Ss full-duplex, four USARTs plus two UARTs, two CANs, SDIO/MMC interface, ethernet and camera interface, an USB OTG full-speed and an USB OTG high-speed with full-speed capability. The I2S peripherals can be clocked via a dedicated internal audio PLL or via an external clock to allow synchronization, to achieve audio class accuracy.
It also offer three 12-bit ADCs, two DACs, a low-power RTC, twelve general-purpose 16-bit timers including two PWM timers for motor control, two general-purpose 32-bit timers, a true random number generator. All timer counters can be frozen in debug mode.
With its high performance, STM32F407VGT6 is suitable for applications such as motor drive and application control, medical equipment, industrial applications, printers and scanners, alarm systems, video intercom and HVAC, home audio applications, etc.
The Arm Cortex-M4 processor with FPU is the latest generation of Arm processors for embedded systems. With a reduced pin count and low-power consumption, delivering outstanding computational performance and an advanced response to interrupts. It is designed to meet the cost-efficient demands of MCU implementation.