Introducing the STM32G4: A Powerful MCU for Diverse Applications

From the overall product layout and roadmap of STM32 MCUs, STM32G4 is positioned as a “mainstream MCU” series, directly competing with the previous STM32F3 and STM32F1, and can be seen as an upgrade of STM32F3 and STM32F1, primarily targeting the mainstream application markets of industrial, consumer, motor control, digital power, etc.

STM32 MCU Product Layout

With the experience gained from the market trials of the previous STM32F3 and STM32F1, the STM32G4 compensates for the performance and peripheral resource shortcomings of its predecessors in its design to meet the needs of segmented market development. Its enhancements in performance and peripheral resources can be described as comprehensive. Specifically, it includes the following aspects:

The STM32G4 is based on the Arm® Cortex®-M4 core, supporting FPU and DSP instruction sets, with a maximum clock frequency of 170MHz, a significant increase compared to the 72MHz clock frequency of STM32F3 and STM32F1. At the same time, the STM32G4 introduces a new hardware math operation accelerator – the Floating Point Accelerator (FMAC) and a dedicated CORDIC (Coordinate Rotation Digital Computer) engine, which allows the STM32G4 to perform coordinate rotation transformations for motor control, trigonometric functions, logarithms, square root operations, as well as math filtering and digital power control more effortlessly, greatly “lightening the load” on the main processor and improving CPU computational efficiency.

The flexible interconnect matrix of the STM32G4 allows for autonomous communication between peripherals, further freeing up CPU resources, resulting in excellent performance.

Power consumption in operating mode is less than 165μA/MHz.

The integration of richer analog peripherals is a major highlight of the STM32G4, with ADCs, DACs, operational amplifiers, comparators, and more. The highest configuration MCU in the STM32G4 series has up to 25 analog peripherals.

The STM32G4 has a secure storage area and integrates hardware encryption AES-256 and a hardware random number generator, enhancing the confidentiality of user programs and communication security, which is particularly important for IoT applications.

Furthermore, the STM32G4 series can operate at a maximum temperature of 125°C, has stronger resistance to electrical interference, can withstand transient voltages above 4kV, and enhanced reliability further expands its application range, especially in some industrial fields.

Based on the above comprehensive performance improvements, the STM32G4 has also segmented its products into three series according to the needs of differentiated application markets. Figure 2 details the differences between the three sub-series products.

Performance Comparison of the Three Sub-series MCUs of STM32G4

STM32G4x1 is the basic series, featuring entry-level analog peripheral configurations, single memory area Flash, with supported Flash memory capacity ranging from 32KB to 512KB.

STM32G4x3 is the enhanced series, which has more analog peripherals compared to the basic devices, as well as dual memory area Flash, with Flash memory capacity increased to 128KB to 512KB, clearly suitable for higher-level applications.

The third STM32G4x4 series is the high-resolution series, which, in addition to the same rich analog peripherals and memory resources as the enhanced series, features high-resolution timers and complex waveform generators, as well as event processors, making it particularly suitable for digital power applications such as digital switch power supplies, lighting, welding, solar energy, and wireless charging.

The STM32G4x4 high-resolution series includes 7 high-resolution timers, which feature 12 PWM outputs (which can be paired) and 10 external event inputs (current limit, zero voltage/zero current detection, etc.) and 6 fault inputs. The main features of these high-resolution timers include:

• 184 ps resolution, applicable to all operating modes: variable duty cycle, variable frequency, and signal transition modes.

• Numerous features that reduce the burden on the CPU: valley skipping and slope compensation; one DMA channel per timer; built-in burst mode controller and specific topology modes – push-pull and resonant.

• Many interconnections between timers: reset/start adjacent timers; set/reset/switch outputs.

With such a rich product series launched at the outset, developers have more choices, making it easier to find the most suitable “chip” for their target applications. It can also be felt that, in facing the future target market, the STM32G4 is indeed well-prepared.

When it comes to STM32, it is inevitable to explore its related development ecosystem. Over the years, it has become a habit that with the launch of each new STM32 product, there are always timely design ecosystem resources “assisting,” and the STM32G4 is no exception. Currently, the resources available to developers include:

• NUCLEO development boards supporting STM32G4 MCUs: NUCLEO-G474RE and NUCLEO-G431RB;

• Fully functional evaluation boards: STM32G474E-EVAL and STM32G484E-EVAL with on-board encryption and accelerometers;

• Development tools: STM32CubeG4 development software;

• Dedicated development kits: including a set of Nucleo motor control dedicated development boards (P-NUCLEO-IHM03) and software development kits (X-CUBE-MCSDK v5.4), as well as online motor control tools ST-MC-SUITE.

NUCLEO development boards supporting STM32G4 MCUs

Another important point is that the STM32G4 is highly compatible with STM32F3 and STM32F1, which gives developers the opportunity to smoothly transition previous designs to the new generation MCU platform, achieving differentiated performance and higher development efficiency.