STM32F7 development boards accelerate embedded design

27th May 2016

Nat Bowers

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STMicroelectronics has released entry-level, mid-range and high-end development boards for the latest members of its STM32F7 MCU series, which are now entering volume production with up to 2MB of on-chip Flash memory and peripherals that help create rich user interfaces. Providing timely support for design starts, the development tools include a low-cost STM32 Nucleo-144 board featuring the STM32F767 variant.

A Discovery Kit supporting the STM32F769 is also available which has TFT-LCD and MIPI-DSI support. In addition, there are highly featured evaluation boards for the STM32F769 and the STM32F779, which has a cryptographic accelerator for security-conscious applications. The evaluation boards and Discovery Kit also come with a 4" QWVGA 800x400 MIPI-DSI display featuring a capacitive touchscreen.

Developers using the STM32F7 hardware platforms can take advantage of extensive software support that comprises the STM32CubeMX initialisation tool and STM32CubeF7 embedded software package including Hardware Abstraction Layer and middleware components like the FreeRTOS real-time operating system, USB library and lightweight IP open-source TCP/IP stack.

The STM32F7 ecosystem enables developers to create MCU applications with sophisticated user interfaces that formerly required the resources of an MPU. The MCU devices, which are based on the 216MHz/462DMIPS/1082 CoreMark ARM Cortex-M7 core with double-precision floating-point unit and DSP instructions, combine enhanced graphics capabilities with extensive connectivity through:

ST’s Chrom-ART Accelerator and a hardware JPEG accelerator for high-speed graphics rendering;
Support for TouchGFX, which allows high-performance graphics and touch at minimal CPU loading;
Support for Embedded Wizard, which allows high-performance graphics and comes with a PC-based utility that helps build GUIs using graphical tools and drag & drop actions;
STemWin professional graphics library and development tools;
Support for USB2.0 with OTG;
CAN2.0 port and Ethernet with IEEE 1588 time-stamping ideal for industrial applications;
HDMI consumer-electronics control, a camera interface and dual-mode Quad-SPI interface to high-speed off-chip memory;
Multiple 16- and 32-bit timers and 12-bit 2MS/s ADCs;
Audio features including 12-bit DACs, I2S (Inter-IC Sound) serial interface with PLL support, digital filters for a sigma-delta modulator and an S/PDIF receiver.

The STM32F769I-EVAL and STM32F779I-EVAL evaluation boards are priced at $360, while the $79 Discovery Kit (STM32F769I-DISCO) and the $23 STM32 Nucleo-144 board (NUCLEO-F767ZI) enable extremely low-cost design starts. All are available immediately, and can be ordered directly from ST or distributors.