STMicroelectronics — STM32MP1 Series Dual-Core Microprocessors

The STM32MP157F multi-core microprocessor from STMicroelectronics features high-performance security and computing capabilities combined with power-efficient real-time control and integrated graphics features.

The heterogeneous architecture implemented in the STM32MP157F combines a dual-core 800 MHz Arm® Cortex®-A7 processing unit with a Cortex-M4 microcontroller core. The Cortex-A7 cores are backed by 32 kbytes of L1 cache and 32 kbytes of data cache for each core, and 256 kbytes of unified L2 cache. The processing unit can implement the Arm NEON™ signal processing acceleration technology and TrustZone® secure partitioning technology.

Advanced security capabilities in the STM32MP157, and also in the similar STM32MP131 security-focused MPU, include:

• True random number generator
• Cryptographic acceleration cell
• Secure boot
• Active tamper protection
• Isolation of resources in the Cortex-M4 core.

In addition, the code available from ST for security mechanisms includes the Open Portable Trusted Execution Environment (OP-TEE) and the Trusted Firmware-A (TF-A) projects. This helps developers using the STM32MP1 series processors to address the key elements of information security in their applications: confidentiality, integrity, availability, and authentication.

The STM32MP157F processor, part of the STM32MP1 series, supports a wide range of external memories, including up to 1 Gbyte of DDR SDRAM, and external Flash via a dual-mode quad serial peripheral interface. The combination of a fast processing unit and generous memory provision ensures that the STM32MP157F can handle ST’s mainlined open-source Linux® operating system distribution, OpenSTLinux, which contains all the essential building blocks for running software on the application processor cores.

To support development with the high-performance STM32MP1 products, ST provides a broad ecosystem of software packages and support for cutting-edge open-source security initiatives.

ST has also introduced software expansion packages tailored for the STM32MP1 which help designers to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) in computer vision projects and to accelerate the development of predictive maintenance applications. These include X-LINUX-AI, an expansion package which contains AI frameworks and application examples for the Linux operating system to help designers to quickly begin implementing computer vision use cases with STM32 evaluation boards and Discovery kits.

To accelerate development of predictive maintenance applications, the X-LINUX-PREDMNT expansion package helps to implement edge gateway features between sensors and cloud services.

The STPMIC1 from ST provides a ready-made power management solution for the STM32MP1 microprocessors.