Arm® 32-bit Microcontrollers
Arm® Cortex®-M in a nutshell
The Arm® Cortex®-M group of processor cores is a series of cores optimized for power efficiency and deterministic operation. It is widely used in microcontrollers (MCUs) and can also be found embedded into multi-core microprocessors (MPUs).
ST, an early adopter of the Arm® Cortex®-M cores
From the initial Cortex®-M3 microcontroller core and the introduction of core variants optimized for low power, like the Cortex®-M0 and then Cortex®-M0+, performance, with the Cortex®-M7, real time, with the Cortex®-M4 or security with the latest Cortex®-M33, the Arm® Cortex®-M architecture is the de-facto standard architecture for 32-bit general purpose MCUs. It also offers a compelling alternative to general purpose 8-bit and 16-bit MCU architectures.
The main advantages of having the Arm® Cortex®-M Profile Architecture standardized across this family of cores are:
- for engineers to easily port their code from one MCU series to the other. They can choose the right trade off between energy efficiency, computation performance, security and range of peripherals for their system
- to leverage on a rich ecosystem from silicon vendors and from software and hardware tools providers
- to accelerate innovation in embedded applications
STMicroelectronics is an early adopter of the Arm® Cortex®-M cores and leads the market with the largest portfolio of 32-bit Cortex®-M MCUs.
It offers engineers:
- the most flexible and scalable choice of microcontrollers on the market with over 1000 part numbers
- the most integrated design experience with an extensive ecosystem of MCU tools and software created by ST and Authorized Partners
- 10 years longevity commitment of supply
Since its launch in 2007, we have shipped over 6 billion STM32 32-bit Arm® Cortex®-M based microcontrollers around the world.