STMicroelectronics has extended the STM32 products family introducing a new series of microcontrollers: the STM32 connectivity line, which includes the new devices STM32F105 and STM32F107, both based on the 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 processor. The new family of MCUs is pin-to-pin and software compatible with the overall STM32 line products.

The STM32 connectivity line is targeted for those applications where real-time behavior and performance, networking capability, and audio class feature are required. Typical applications of these devices are the following:

• Point of sales: portable terminals, vending machines, thermal printers, scanners and readers
• Industrial automation: PLCs, networking (gateway devices), robotics
• Home and car audio
• Building automation
• Medical equipments (personal health care devices)

STM32 Main Features

The main features of the STM32 connectivity line devices are:

• Ethernet 10/100 MAC with embedded DMA and IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) hardware support. The physical interface (PHY) can be connected using MII and RMII interfaces, thus realizing a complete Ethernet transceiver.
• Full speed USB 2.0 On-The-Go 12 Mbps with embedded OTG PHY: the new devices can thus operate either as a USB host or as USB device.
• Dual CAN 2.0B; the two can buses can work independently.
• Dual I2S audio class peripherals, controlled by an advanced Phase-Locked Loop scheme. I2S is a serial 3-wire bus specifically designed by Philips in 1986 for digital audio devices, such as codecs. Combined with the ability to operate either as an USB host and an USB device, the STM32 connectivity line devices can read, decode, and output audio from an external storage such as an MP3 player or a USM mass-storage device. I2S interfaces can operate as inputs or outputs with 16 or 32 bits resolution, and with audio sampling frequencies from 8 to 96 KHz.
• Other relevant peripherals such as: SPI and UART/IrDA interfaces, 2 12-bit ADCs, 2 12-bit DACs, 10 timers (also PWM timers), and up to 80 GPIOs. All of these peripherals can work at the same time, making the STM32 connectivity line an MCU family with outstanding communication capabilities.
• Several power and clock-management modes with a low-power real-time clock mode providing a consumption of 1.4 microA at 3.3V in standby mode. Programmable wake-up features are available, and a memory space of 84 bytes is reserved for data backup.
• Three kinds of bootloader options: UART+USB+CAN, USB OTG, Ethernet. USB OTG and Ethernet allow also to upgrade the software on the field.
• All the peripherals can be clocked by an external 25 MHz crystal. Moreover, the CPU can generate a 25 or 50 MHz output signal which can be used to clock the external PHY device, thus saving an additional crystal.

The STM32F105 device includes USB 2.0 OTG and CAN 2.0B features, whereas the STM32F107 model adds the Ethernet functionality.
The devices feature an on-chip flash which ranges from 64 to 256 Kb, a SRAM up to 64 Kb, and 14 different types of communication interfaces. Available packages are LQF64, LQFP100, and BGA100.
The STM32 Connectivity line of MCUs has several features that are perfectly suited to three-phase brushless motor control:

• Powerful Cortex-M3 core
• PWM advanced control timers with embedded dead-time generation
• several PWM outputs allowing multiple DCbrush, stepper or universal motor drives
• Dual sample and hold ADC, 12-bit resolution, 1 μs conversion time
• Free motor control firmware libraries supporting AC induction motor (sensored) and PMSM motor (sensorless, Hall-sensor or encoder) vector control
• Less than 21 μs for sensorless vector control loop
• STM3210B-MCKIT full developer kit for vector drives

The following picture shows the STM32 connectivity line block diagram, which summarizes all the main features of the new devices:

Here is instead an image of the STM32 Cortex-based microcontroller:

Regarding the development tools for the STM32F105 and STM32F107 MCUs, STMicroelectronics offers a STM32 firmware library. This free software package contains all the code required to perform an easy access to the STM32 peripherals, GPIOs, and timers. The library is written in C, is fully documented, and requires just a basic knowledge of the C language. Moreover, it is compatible with any compiler for the ARM core-based microcontroller, and is compliant to the MISRA C rules for automotive applications. There are also several IDEs ready to support the new STM32 devices, such as ARM/Keil, IAR, and Raisonance.

Read and download datasheet from ST

Read the Italian version: STM32 connectivity line: la soluzione per le applicazioni real-time, audio, e network