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).

arm cortex microcontroller mcuST, 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:

Since its launch in 2007, we have shipped over 6 billion STM32 32-bit Arm® Cortex®-M based microcontrollers around the world.

Explore Arm® Cortex®-M cores in STM32 32-bit microcontroller portfolio:

arm cortex m3 processor core

Arm® Cortex®-M3

Exceptional 32-bit performance with low power consumption

arm cortex m0+ processor core

Arm® Cortex®-M0+

Smallest footprint and lowest power requirements of Cortex-M processors

arm cortex m0 processor core

Arm® Cortex®-M0

Smallest Arm® processor available

arm cortex m7 processor core

Arm® Cortex®-M7

Highest performance Cortex-M processor

arm cortex m4 processor core

Arm® Cortex®-M4

Control and performance for mixed signal devices

arm cortex m33 processor core

Arm® Cortex®-M33

Ideal blend of real-time determinism, efficiency and security