We recently published a new massive open online course to serve as an introduction to our STM32L0 microcontroller. The component is very popular in low-power applications because it enables the creation of feature-rich products that must rely on a battery for years. For instance, Intesens, a French company, uses it in its Sigfox trackers to monitor the state of backup power supplies or the electric behavior of specific assets to predict failures and anticipate maintenance operations. With a Flash of up to 192 KB, and power consumption as low as 230 nA in ultra-low-power mode, the STM32L0 enables applications that couldn’t exist otherwise. Another example is the PlacePod, a smart parking sensor that must stay buried underground for years and must, therefore, save as much energy as possible to be commercially viable.
The Ins and Outs of the STM32L0
The course first starts by diving into the architecture of the microcontroller to better understand its peripherals, its low power modes, and how the STM32L0 behaves under these states. For instance, students will learn that there are high-speed and low-speed peripherals that use different buses (APB) and that engineers can set different frequencies to optimize power consumption even further. The course also dives into DMA (Direct Memory Access), which greatly accelerates operations by enabling the system to send data from the RAM to the peripherals without necessarily involving the core CPU. Similarly, the courses go over the analog-to-digital converters and timers as well as the SPI, UART, USB and I2S communication peripherals, among others. It is a deep dive into the microcontroller and one of the best ways designers can take full advantage of it.
A great example of the importance of this course is the tutorial on the low power modes in the video above. It describes the consumption, startup times, and dynamic clock systems that each profile uses and what developers can customize.