Ultra-Low Power and Security for IoT Come First on New STM32L5 Microcontrollers from STMicroelectronics

• Proprietary security builds on Arm TrustZone technology to achieve PSA Certified Level 2 certification
• Secure boot, full HW isolation, crypto accelerators
• Best-in-class power management for energy-conscious applications

Geneva, February 13, 2020 – STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM), a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, announces ultra-low-power STM32L5x2 microcontrollers (MCUs) that emphasize security to assure better protected IoT-connected applications.

Operating at clock frequencies to 110MHz, the STM32L5-series MCUs start from the Arm Cortex-M33 32-bit RISC core with Arm TrustZone hardware-based security. First conceived for equipment such as desktops, mobile devices, and communication infrastructure, trusted computing authenticates devices connected to a network by creating a protected execution environment for cyber-protection and sensitive code (cryptography and key storage) that blocks attempts to corrupt devices or software. A second, independent, execution environment allows for the running of untrusted code.

To this foundation, ST adds the freedom to include or exclude each I/O, peripheral, or area of Flash or SRAM from TrustZone protection, allowing sensitive workloads to be fully isolated for maximum security. In addition, ST has engineered TrustZone to ensure support for secure boot, special read-out and write protection for integrated SRAM and Flash, and cryptographic acceleration, including AES 128/256-bit key hardware acceleration, public key acceleration (PKA), and AES-128 On-The-Fly Decryption (OTFDEC), to protect external code or data. The STM32L5 also supports active tamper detection and secure firmware installation. With this attention to security, the STM32L5 has been certified to PSA Certified Level 2.

“As IoT and embedded devices increase in intelligence and functionality, security must be built in from the ground up,” said Thomas Ensergueix, senior director, Automotive and IoT Line of Business at Arm. “The STM32L5 series makes it easier for developers to build trusted PSA Certified devices based on the Arm Cortex-M33 processor, providing a robust and secure foundation for devices ranging from consumer products to industrial equipment.”

On top of this protection and design flexibility, ST mixes in its proprietary ultra-low-power expertise through techniques like adaptive voltage scaling, real-time acceleration, power gating, and multiple reduced-power operating modes, to enable the MCUs to deliver high performance and long run-times, whether powered by coin cells or even through energy harvesting. In addition, a highly efficient switched-mode step-down regulator can be powered up or down on-the-fly to improve low-power performance when the VDD voltage is high enough. The resulting ULPMark scores, which are key measures of ultra-low-power efficiency based on real-world benchmarks developed by EEMBC, are excellent: 370 ULPMark-CoreProfile and 54 ULPMark-PeripheralProfile at 1.8V.