Page 58 - ARM Based Microcontroller Projects Using MBED

44 4. STM32 NUCLEO DEVELOPMENT BOARDS

These three groups are further divided into three subgroups, identified by three different
colors:

• ultralow power (green)
• mainstream (blue)
• high performance (magenta)
The ultralow-power boards are based on the STM32 L family and these boards are
targeted for low-power applications, such as watches, smart meters, etc. Examples of the
ultralow-power boards are: Nucleo-L011K4, Nucleo-L031K6, Nucleo-L432KC, and Nucleo-
L433RC-P. There are three subcategories in the STM32 L family:

• L0, ARM Cortex-M0+
• L1, ARM Cortex-M3
• L4, ARM Cortex-M4
About half of the STM32 Nucleo boards are in the mainstream category. Examples of the
mainstream boards are: Nucleo-F303K8, Nucleo-F042K6, Nucleo-F303RE, etc. There are three
subcategories in the mainstream category:
• F0, ARM Cortex-M0+
• F1, ARM Cortex-M3
• F3, ARM Cortex-M4
The high-performance boards have large memories and faster MCUs. Examples of high-
performance boards are: Nucleo-F410RB, Nucleo-F401RE, Nucleo-F722ZE, etc. There are
three subcategories in the high-performance category:

• F2, ARM Cortex-M3
• F4, ARM Cortex-M4
• F7, ARM Cortex-M7

The Nucleo-32 boards are small (50mm 19mm) and are Arduino Nano compatible. The
Nucleo-64 and Nucleo-144 boards are Arduino Uno compatible and they also have the stan-
dard ST Morpho extension connectors which carry the MCU pins. There are a large number of
Arduino Nano/Uno compatible shields available in the market and these shields can easily be
used with the Nucleo boards, thus making it easy to quickly develop projects using the
Nucleo boards.
Depending upon the model, the Nucleo boards have flash program memory sizes ranging
from 16KB to 2MB, and RAM memories ranging from 4 to 320KB. The clock frequency varies
from 32 to 216MHz.
Fig. 4.1 shows a comparison of the Nucleo boards available at the time this book was
written.

4.2.1 Nucleo-32 Development Boards
Fig. 4.2 shows an example of Nucleo-32 board, the Nucleo-L031K6. This is an ultralow-
power low-cost board incorporating the 32-pin STM32L031K6T6 microcontroller. The board