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50-cent ST7 micros

STMicroelectronics’ ultra-low-cost series of flash microcontrollers for highly cost-sensitive products, the ST7FOX series, includes devices with from 2 to 8 kbytes of on-chip flash, each featuring eight to 32 pins. Relative to other ST7 parts, these chips have a simplified feature set, operate at +5V (±10%) power supply and include an RC oscillator, which you can calibrate within the application. With a CISC architecture, nested interrupt management and a variety of addressing modes in the core architecture simplify highlevel language coding. ST designed the devices to satisfy the increasing needs in the industry for reliable low-end and very low-cost MCUs for use in costcritical applications, with an upgrade path to the ST7Lite family, which enables manufacturers to build scalable product families. Microcontroller designs in flash—to replace electromechanical or logic-based control—can cost as little as ROM devices. A free IDE (integrated development environment), including a C compiler, minimises costs for developers. Samples of certain ST7FOX products are available now: 8-pin DIP or SO-8 packaged devices with 2 kbytes of flash, and 32-pin DIP or LQFP devices with 4 kbytes of flash. All are priced at less than $0.50 in large quantities.

STMicroelectronics, www.st.com