STM32 Prototyping Boards

I used an STM32 for the first time in Robot2, and soon discovered how cool they were. Each one is packed full of neat peripherals, runs really really fast and can do all sorts of cool stuff that simpler µCs like an ATmega simply can’t pull off. With this in mind, I asked ST for two samples of their STM32F103CBT6, a 48pin LQFP package. They sent the samples (thanks, ST!) and I got to making up a PCB to put them on.

I decided I wanted something with a lot of interface peripherals, so broke out USART1, 2 and 3, I²C1 and 2 (also USART3) and SPI1 and 2. Additionally a USB plug is connected to the USB peripheral, and JTAG is available. The 6pin header for USART1 is compatible with the FTDI cables/breakouts which makes interfacing with an FTDI cable for programming (the bootloader listens on USART1) or with an xbee on one of SparkFun’s breakouts is very easy.

So far I’ve used one of these boards for Robot3 (an upcoming post) and plan to use the second to start prototypes with my quadcopter UAV. They’re pretty useful, uploading code to them is quick and easy with the bootloader, and having that many peripherals available and capable of running at pretty high speeds makes these boards handy to have around.

Eagle files and a PNG here.

7 Responses to “STM32 Prototyping Boards”

  1. [...] motor driver board (two h-bridges), with all the wires running through the old contact holes. An STM32 dev board went on top and connects to a Sharp IR rangefinder and xbee [...]

    Negative Acknowledge » Blog Archive » Robot3 said this on September 14th, 2009 at 11:07 pm

  2. Hello, I’d really like to take a look at the schematic of the board, but there seems to be a permission problem on the http server.
    It look so nice.

    thebrave said this on September 25th, 2009 at 6:48 am

  3. Oops, sorry about that. Fixed.

    Random said this on September 25th, 2009 at 1:50 pm

  4. I’m looking into replacing AVR-controllers with Cortex-M3 myself, but unsure about build tools. What compiler-chain are you using? Are you using any RTOS or other kind of framework?

    Simen said this on January 11th, 2010 at 8:53 pm

  5. I’m using the CodeSourcery GCC compiler set, without an RTOS or similar. I am using the ST peripheral library and my build environment is available from http://github.com/randomskk/ in SkeletonProject and also Robot4/SensorTesting. It works, but it’s a lot more complicated and harder to set up than AVR!

    Random said this on January 12th, 2010 at 1:59 am

  6. Where did you get this board manufactured? I’m interested in a board like this, but I’m broke and can’t pay $50 for just a PCB.

    Julian said this on March 20th, 2011 at 5:16 am

  7. Julian, if you’re in US I can wholeheartedly recommend Laen’s PCB group order. I use it myself with great results.

    Victor said this on December 7th, 2011 at 7:20 am