'We see huge growth of STM32 market in India'

BANGALORE, INDIA: STMicroelectronics is one of the first microelectronics companies to take cognizance of India's potential. Its R&D center in Greater Noida is STMicroelectronics’ largest design center outside Europe.

In an interview with Bertrand Denis, Senior Manager, Microcontrollers Division, STMicroelectronics, he tells CIOL that, the company has witnessed more than 50 per cent growth over their last year’s sales compared to the past three years (YoY), mainly because of the consumption patterns of the new generation MCUs in the market.

CIOL: Please elaborate on the STM32F0 series MCUs. What is the USP of STM32F0 MCU series over other market players in the microcontrollers segment?

Bertrand Denis: The STM32 F0 is a full embedded MCU built using the same STM32 DNA that the rest of the STM32 family has, including excellent real-time performance, DMA, high-resolution ADC and DAC peripherals, motor control timers, and connectivity interfaces.

These integrated capabilities bring tremendous efficiency to cost-sensitive designs in a way that limited 8- and 16-bit MCU architectures cannot.

STM32F0 has the lowest cost in the STM32 M0 portfolio. It enables the developers requiring high-performance and for developing cost sensitive applications migrating from 8/16bit MCU cores to highly acknowledged ARM portfolio. This is further followed by STs roadmap of 20pin/16K Flash and 100pin/128K Flash devices.

With the STM32 F0, the CPU operates independently of the data interface, allowing developers to program the CPU for other tasks without having to worry about missing an interrupt or losing data.

It provides enhanced features for applications like consumers and industrial such as 11 PWM 16 bit timers including motor control timer, fast 1uSec 12 bit ADC, 12 bit DAC, Comparators and Consumer Electronic Control (CEC) hardware functions.

The F0 architecture features ARM’s Coresight technology to help developers analyze, optimize, and verify program execution with minimal effort and cost.

CIOL: How does STM32F0 MCUs take advantage of the modern ARM Cortex-M0 32 bit embedded processor architecture to help product developers overcome the limitations imposed by old and proprietary 8-bit and 16-bit devices?

Bertrand Denis: STM32 portfolio offers an extraordinary variety of options, including  ARM Cortex-M Cores (M0, M3, M4) giving developers unparalleled flexibility to find the perfect STM32 for their application.

Compared to 8-bit or 16-bit processor, STM32F0 has been evaluated as high performing close to 1.6MHz Mark/MHz. STM32F0 affirms our position in the  family of 32-Bit with performance and  price at par with 8-bit or 16-bit controllers. Basically at the price of 16-bit, you can get a 32-bit.

One of the challenging tasks in shifting a platform is on software migrations.

However, thanks to the high level compilers like C which now makes the migration of platforms very simple. Developers can easily migrate designs between different STM32 MCUs as all STM32 MCUs are upward code-compatible.

Most STM32 devices are also pin-compatible, simplifying hardware redesign as well. Furthermore, STM32 MCUs are also peripheral and system function compatible, meaning that even migrating low-level code is a seamless and transparent process.

CIOL: How do you see the 32 bit MCU series leveraging growth for STMicroelectronics in the years to come?

Bertrand Denis: Today, ST Microcontrollers has best suited portfolio for Indian market products. We have a wide range of products to suit industrial, consumer, medical and other portable applications. The cost has been another driving factor where due to the latest technology our MCU portfolio is well accepted in various high end to cost sensitive applications.

ST MCUs has wide portfolio from 8-bit range to 32-bit range. STM32 has been first family to adopt ARM Cortex M core. This family has now become quite popular worldwide and also in India and we have several applications developed on it.

STM32F family is available in a large portfoilio with over 350 Parts in production from low cost range of 24MHz to high performance range of 168MHz. For Ultra Low Power applications like Medical and portable players etc, our STM32L1 family is well suited.

For very low cost applications, our 8-bit MCU range STM8 is also well suitable and acceptable in Indian Market. STM8 has three family which are core compatible. The first family, STM8S, is best suited for industrial applications, the other Ultra Low Power devices, STM8L, are suitable for metering, small medical equipments and other portable applications.

The third family is STM8A, which is dedicated for automotive electronics applications like Car Window controls, BCM, Antipinch etc.

CIOL: What are your expectations from emerging markets like India? How much business are you expecting out of India?

Bertrand Denis: In India, the automotive, industrial and consumer segments are fast growing segments for MCU growth. In the automotive segment, electronics is continuously increasing in car body, infotainment, engine and safety which is demanding usage of more numbers of MCUs per car.

Motor control applications in industrial and consumer segments are also expanding rapidly. Some of applications in home appliances like washing machine, air-conditioning, and refrigeration are incorporating more and more variable speed motors. 

Similarly, industrial motor drives are also increasing. The other growing application is the HMI (Human Interface devices) applications like touch sensing which is increasing rapidly.

In India, we are actively promoting for past 3-4 years and we have witnessed that there has been  more than 50% growth over our last year sales compared to past three years (Year on Year) mainly because of the consumption patterns of these new generation MCUs in the market.

Overall we see a very huge growth of STM32 market in India. 

CIOL: Please tell us about the 'Go to market' strategy adopted to promote STMicroelectronics' MCUs in India?

Bertrand Denis: By continuously engaging the engineering community, conducting technical seminars,advertizing with media of repute for embedded engineers. 

Through our STM32 Discovery Tool kits that helps developers to discover features and to develop applications easily. It includes everything required for beginners and experienced users to get started quickly and are easily available with our channel partners and can be purchased on line as well at a cost effective price.

CIOL: The recently launched MCU series claims to be cost effective. Could you explain, how the STM32F0 MCU series strike a balance between good performance and competitive price? Are there any hidden costs involved?

Bertrand Denis: Nowadays, newer applications which demand higher real time performance, require high performance MCUs .

With STM32F0, a vast array of applications can be targeted  at an effective price  due to its integrated capabilities including excellent real-time performance, DMA, high-resolution ADC and DAC peripherals, motor control timers, and connectivity interfaces.

These integrated capabilities bring tremendous efficiency to cost-sensitive designs in a way that limited 8-bit and 16-bit MCU architectures cannot.

These enable the developers requiring high-performance and for developing cost sensitive applications migrating from 8-bit or 16-bit MCU cores to highly acknowledged ARM portfolio.