Main Content

A complete tutorial for using an STM32 without a dev board

About two years ago I started working with the Teensy 3.1 (which uses a Freescale Kinetis ARM-Cortex microcontroller) and I was super impressed with the ARM processor, both for its power and relative simplicity (it is not simpleits just relatively simple for the amount of power you get for the cost IMO). Almost all my projects before that point had consisted of AVRs and PICs (Im in the AVR camp now), but now ARM-based microcontrollers had become serious contenders for something that I could go to instead. I soon began working on a small development board project also involving some Freescale Kinetis microcontrollers since those are what I have become the most familiar with. Sadly, I have had little success since I have been trying to make a programmer myself (the official one is a minimum of $200). During the course of this project I came across a LOT of STM32 stuff and it seemed that it was actually quite easy to set up. Lots of the projects used the STM32 Discovery and similar dev boards, which are a great tools and provide an easy introduction to ARM microcontrollers. However, my interest is more towards doing very bare metal development. Like soldering the chip to a board and hooking it up to a programmer. Who needs any of that dev board stuff? For some reason I just find doing embedded development without a development board absolutely fascinating. Some people might interpret doing things this way as a form of masochism. Perhaps I should start seeing a doctor”

Link to article