ST makes ultra-low-power MCU family more accessible

STM32L0x0 Value Line microcontrollers (MCUs) from STMicroelectronics have been developed to provide engineers with a low-cost entry point to the STM32L0 series, delivering ultra-low-power technology and efficient 32-bit performance with the Arm Cortex-M0+ core for designs with tight cost, size, or power constraints.

With up to 128Kbyte Flash memory, 20KByte SRAM, and 512Byte true embedded EEPROM on-chip the STM32L0x0 MCUs save external components to cut down on board space and BOM cost. In addition to price-sensitive and space-constrained consumer devices such as fitness trackers, computer or gaming accessories, and remotes, the new STM32L0x0 Value Line MCUs are intended for personal medical devices, industrial sensors, and IoT devices such as building controls, weather stations, smart locks, smoke detectors, or fire alarms.

ST’s power-saving low-leakage process technology and device features such as a low-power UART, low-power timer, 41µA 10ksample/s ADC, and wake-up from power saving in as little as 5µs, enable designers to target ambitious energy management targets.

Designers can use these devices to achieve goals such as extending battery runtime without sacrificing product features, increasing wireless mobility, or endowing devices like smart meters or IoT sensors with up to 10-year battery-life leveraging the ultra-frugal 670nA power-down current with RTC and RAM retention.

The development ecosystem allows low-cost design starts. The Keil MDK-ARM professional IDE supports STM32L0x0 devices free of charge, and the STM32CubeMX configuration-code generator provides easy-to-use design analysis including a power-consumption calculator. A compatible Nucleo-64 development board (NUCLEO-L010RB) with Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) library is already available, to facilitate fast project start-up.

The STM32L0x0 Value Line comprises six new parts, giving a choice of 16-Kbyte, 64-Kbyte, or 128-Kbyte of Flash memory, 128-Byte, 256-Byte or 512-Byte EEPROM, and various package options. In addition, pin-compatibility with the full STM32 family of more than 800 part numbers offering a wide variety of core performance and integrated features, allows design flexibility and future scalability, with the freedom to leverage existing investment in code, documentation, and tools.