STMicroelectronics Launches Microcontroller Application Design Contest; Prizes exceed $10,000

The STM32 is the industry’s largest ARM Cortex M-based microcontroller family with more than 140 device variants, suited for applications requiring real-time control or connectivity from consumer appliances and electronics, through metering and home audio, to medical and industrial networking.



ST’s STM32 microcontrollers combine high performance, real-time, low-power and low-voltage operation, while maintaining full integration and ease of development. Pin-to-pin, software and development-tool compatibility across the whole family ensures full flexibility.



All STM32 Design Challenge participants will receive a valuable “Discovery kit for STM32 Design Challenge,” a fully integrated hardware development platform including a USB-powered board populated with a 72MHz STM32F103RGT6 featuring 1Mbyte of Flash, integrated ST-LINK in-circuit debugger and an extension connector for accessing the STM32 peripherals, just for entering the Challenge. They will also get access to downloadable development tools from major third-party vendors including Atollic, IAR Systems® and Keil.



In the first phase, contestants will be invited to submit their STM32 design concepts in three categories, based on their design’s usage of Flash memory: up to 32Kbytes, from 32K to 256 Kbytes, and from 256 Kbytes to 1 Mbyte of embedded Flash. All submissions will qualify for the second, Early Prototype Design phase of the contest, and, finally, 10 entrants will be selected to participate in the Final Prototype Design phase.



The contest jury, composed of an EE Times editor and STMicroelectronics and Digi-Key representatives, will assess the ten short-listed designs and also take into account the peer votes of advancing participants in selecting the Grand Prize winner and three runners-up. The winners will be announced at the UBM Embedded Systems Conference in Silicon Valley, the week of May 2, 2011.



“STM32 brings a new degree of freedom to embedded application developers, combining the leading performance and real-time behavior, outstanding power efficiency, a rich set of peripherals, maximum integration and an excellent tool and software ecosystem,” said Stuart McLaren, Product Marketing Manager at STMicroelectronics. “The STM32 Design Challenge aims at supporting and promoting innovative design ideas in the 32-bit microcontroller space, which has become the technology of choice for high-performance embedded-control applications in all industry segments.”