In a press release, STMicroelectronics NV, founded in 1987, said it has leveraged the current investment in 90nm embedded Flash technology for making its secure and automotive microcontrollers.

The company claims that its STM32 MCUs – which use the 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 core – give enhanced peripheral integration, faster operation, as well as additional savings in power consumption. The STM32 MCUs also provide, according to STMicroelectronics NV, the highest on-chip SRAM as also non-volatile memory densities.

Samples of the STM32 MCUs have been released for evaluation to be conducted by a selected group of customers. The full production has been scheduled to begin in 2010.

It was in June 2007 that STMicroelectronics NV entered the fast-growing, high-volume 32-bit area of MCU, by launching the STM32 MCU family. At that time, the company had offered the STM32 MCU in 2 separate lines – the ‘Access’ line with clock frequencies of up to 36 MHz, and the ‘'Performance’ line to sport-clock frequencies of up to 72 MHz.

STMicroelectronics NV said the company currently has 70 STM32 devices in full production. Taking the STM32 to 90nm, it added, would help more feature-rich applications attain higher performance standards and even more power efficiency.