Nucleo U031R8

Overview

The Nucleo U031R8 board, featuring an ARM Cortex-M0+ based STM32U031R8 MCU, provides an affordable and flexible way for users to try out new concepts and build prototypes by choosing from the various combinations of performance and power consumption features. Here are some highlights of the Nucleo U031R8 board:

  • STM32U031R8 microcontroller in LQFP48 package

  • Two types of extension resources:

    • Arduino Uno V3 connectivity

    • ST morpho extension pin headers for full access to all STM32U0 I/Os

  • On-board STLINK-V2EC debugger/programmer with USB re-enumeration capability: mass storage, Virtual COM port, and debug port

  • Flexible board power supply:

    • USB VBUS or external source(3.3V, 5V, 7 - 12V)

  • User LED shared with ARDUINO® Uno V3

  • Two push-buttons: USER and RESET

  • USB Type-C® connector for the ST-LINK

More information about the board can be found at the NUCLEO_U031R8 website.

Hardware

The STM32U031x4/6/8 devices are an ultra-low-power microcontrollers family (STM32U0 Series) based on the high-performance Arm® Cortex®-M0+ 32-bit RISC core. They operate at a frequency of up to 56 MHz.

  • Includes ST state-of-the-art patented technology

  • Ultra-low-power with FlexPowerControl:

    • 1.71 V to 3.6 V power supply

    • -40 °C to +85/125 °C temperature range

    • 130 nA VBAT mode: supply for RTC, 9 x 32-bit backup registers

    • 16 nA Shutdown mode (4 wake-up pins)

    • 30 nA Standby mode (6 wake-up pins) without RTC

    • 160 nA Standby mode with RTC

    • 630 nA Stop 2 mode with RTC

    • 515 nA Stop 2 mode without RTC

    • 4 µA wake-up from Stop mode

    • 52 µA/MHz Run mode

    • Brownout reset

  • Core:

    • 32-bit Arm® Cortex®-M0+ CPU, frequency up to 56 MHz

  • ART Accelerator:

    • 1-Kbyte instruction cache allowing 0-wait-state execution from flash memory

  • Benchmarks:

    • 1.13 DMIPS/MHz (Drystone 2.1)

    • 134 CoreMark® (2.4 CoreMark/MHz at 56 MHz)

    • 430 ULPMark™-CP

    • 167 ULPMark™-PP

    • 20.3 ULPMark™-CM

  • Memories:

    • 64-Kbyte single bank flash memory, proprietary code readout protection

    • 12-Kbyte SRAM with hardware parity check

  • General-purpose input/outputs:

    • Up to 53 fast I/Os, most of them 5 V‑tolerant

  • Clock management:

    • 4 to 48 MHz crystal oscillator

    • 32 kHz crystal oscillator for RTC (LSE)

    • Internal 16 MHz factory-trimmed RC (±1%)

    • Internal low-power 32 kHz RC (±5%)

    • Internal multispeed 100 kHz to 48 MHz oscillator, auto-trimmed by LSE (better than ±0.25 % accuracy)

    • PLL for system clock, ADC

  • Security:

    • Customer code protection

    • Robust read out protection (RDP): 3 protection level states and password-based regression (128-bit PSWD)

    • Hardware protection feature (HDP)

    • Secure boot

    • True random number generation, candidate for NIST SP 800-90B certification

    • Candidate for Arm® PSA level 1 and SESIP level 3 certifications

    • 5 passive anti-tamper pins

    • 96-bit unique ID

  • Up to 9 timers, RTC, and 2 watchdogs :

    • 1x 16-bit advanced motor-control, 1x 32-bit and 3x 16-bit general purpose, 2x 16-bit basic, 2x low-power 16-bit timers (available in Stop mode), 2x watchdogs, SysTick timer

    • RTC with hardware calendar, alarms and calibration

  • Up to 16 communication peripherals:

    • 6x USARTs/LPUARTs (SPI, ISO 7816, LIN, IrDA, modem)

    • 3x I2C interfaces supporting Fast-mode and Fast-mode Plus (up to 1 Mbit/s)

    • 2x SPIs, plus 4x USARTs in SPI mode

    • IRTIM (Infrared interface)

  • Rich analog peripherals (independent supply):

    • 1x 12-bit ADC (0.4 µs conversion time), up to 16-bit with hardware oversampling

    • 1x 12-bit DAC output channel, low-power sample and hold

    • 1x general-purpose operational amplifier with built-in PGA (variable gain up to 16)

    • 1x ultra-low-power comparator

  • ECOPACK2 compliant packages

More information about STM32U031R8 can be found here:

Supported Features

The nucleo_u031r8 board supports the hardware features listed below.

on-chip / on-board
Feature integrated in the SoC / present on the board.
2 / 2
Number of instances that are enabled / disabled.
Click on the label to see the first instance of this feature in the board/SoC DTS files.
vnd,foo
Compatible string for the Devicetree binding matching the feature.
Click on the link to view the binding documentation.

Connections and IOs

Nucleo U031R8 Board has 10 GPIO controllers. These controllers are responsible for pin muxing, input/output, pull-up, etc.

For more details please refer to STM32U031 User Manual.

Default Zephyr Peripheral Mapping:

  • DAC1_OUT1 : PA4

  • LD1 : PA5

  • UART_1_TX : PA9

  • UART_1_RX : PA10

  • UART_2_TX : PA2

  • UART_2_RX : PA3

  • USER_PB : PC13

System Clock

Nucleo U031R8 System Clock could be driven by internal or external oscillator, as well as main PLL clock. By default System clock is driven by PLL clock at 48MHz, driven by 4MHz medium speed internal oscillator.

Serial Port

Nucleo U031R8 board has 4 U(S)ARTs. The Zephyr console output is assigned to USART2. Default settings are 115200 8N1.

Programming and Debugging

The nucleo_u031r8 board supports the runners and associated west commands listed below.

flash debug

Nucleo U031R8 board includes an ST-LINK/V3 embedded debug tool interface. This probe allows to flash the board using various tools.

Warning

The onboard ST-LINK/V3 debug probe cannot be converted into a JLink probe; as such, usage of the JLink runner requires an external JLink debug probe.

Warning

There are known issues about the usage of the pyOCD runner with this board. If issues are encountered (e.g., debugging does not work), use the ST-Link GDB Server runner instead.

Flashing

The board is configured to be flashed using west STM32CubeProgrammer runner, so its installation is required.

Alternatively, JLink or pyOCD can also be used to flash the board using the --runner (or -r) option:

$ west flash --runner pyocd
$ west flash --runner jlink

For pyOCD, additional target information needs to be installed by executing the following pyOCD commands:

$ pyocd pack --update
$ pyocd pack --install stm32u0

Flashing an application to Nucleo U031R8

Connect the Nucleo U031R8 to your host computer using the USB port. Then build and flash an application. Here is an example for the Hello World application.

Run a serial host program to connect with your Nucleo board:

$ minicom -D /dev/ttyACM0

Then build and flash the application.

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b nucleo_u031r8 samples/hello_world
west flash

You should see the following message on the console:

Hello World! nucleo_u031r8

Debugging

Here is an example for the Blinky application.

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b nucleo_u031r8 samples/basic/blinky
west debug