On February 19th, STMicroelectronics held the STM8 media conference in Beijing, China. Patrice Hamard, the microcontroller product marketing manager of STMicroelectronics, shared the latest developments in the MUC field with the participating media.

In the MCU space, ST has the broadest and most innovative product portfolio in the industry. Among them, the STM32 product portfolio has 14 series, including 50 product lines and more than 850 products. In the field of 8-bit MCUs for low-cost applications, STM8 has an outstanding performance. Over the past 10 years, the cumulative shipments of STM8 microcontrollers have exceeded 400 million.

From the product line, STM8 has three series, of which STM8S is the mainstream series, its performance is stable and reliable, mainly for high cost and high efficiency applications; STM8A is the automotive series, positioning high quality and high reliability standard design; The STM8L is an ultra-low power series designed for energy-efficient applications.

It is worth noting that the current 8-bit MCU market is highly competitive and many manufacturers are competing for price at all costs. ST said that it always puts high quality and long-term supply capacity in the first place, followed by price/performance ratio. According to official data from ST, since 2015, the STM8 standard has achieved a product quality defect rate of less than 0.1ppm. The defect rate of the STM8A automotive series has been below 0.6ppm for four consecutive years.

In terms of supply capacity, ST announced at this media conference that the STM8 full series is guaranteed for at least 10 years supply. In fact, no STM8 MCU has been discontinued so far. At the same time, the 8-bit MCU market has great potential and will not be replaced by 32-bit MCU.

In the past two years, the global MCU market has been in short supply, and ST's MCU products have also experienced supply shortages. For this reason, ST has begun to actively expand production. It is reported that ST has already started shipments in the second factory that has just been newly built in Singapore. Hamard said: "Our new plant in Singapore has already started shipments, and our MCU supply capacity will be greatly improved in the future. This plant started mass production in October last year, with the release of production capacity, lead time will be greatly shortened.”