The STMicroelectronics STM32WB wireless microcontroller now supports Zigbee 3.0

     The STM32WB55 wireless microcontroller now supports Zigbee 3.0, which is based on the Zigbee PRO protocol stack, enabling developers to take advantage of the interoperate, energy efficient Zigbee networking technology to develop home automation, smart lighting, smart buildings, and other broader iot connectivity projects.

     Zigbee 3.0 integrates the networking capabilities of consumer electronics and industrial applications in the Zigbee specification, prompting major vendors in the consumer electronics and Internet markets to deploy Zigbee networking technology on new smart home products. St is a longtime supporter of Zigbee technology and is a member of the Zigbee Alliance Board of Directors, the Zigbee Alliance China Membership Group (ZMGC), and the Zigbee Alliance Smart Home Internet of Things (CHIP) Working Group.

     The Zigbee 3.0 software developed by ST for the STM32WB55 includes the acclaimed Exegin Zigbee PRO protocol stack. The protocol stack is free to use and is fully supported by ST Software. This protocol stack is adopted in Exegin products that receive Zigbee Golden Units certificates and is designated as a test laboratory reference stack. To further simplify development, ST software supports 46 Zigbee 3.0 clusters, allowing users to quickly set device functions. Another 21 clusters support legacy products.

     "This is a milestone for the Zigbee Alliance, and with the introduction of ST's Zigbee 3.0 product, Zigbee is poised to reach a new level of technology maturity that will help solidify Zigbee and ST's leadership in the iot space," said Leslie Mulder, president of Exegin.

     The STM32WB55 microcontroller also supports Thread and Bluetooth 5.0 and has over-the-air update (OTA) capabilities. STM32WB55 currently has 10 products, available in a variety of packages, flash memory capacity 256KB-1MB. Additional releases are planned for the next quarter and will give developers more flexibility to choose between the application's performance and cost goals. These products are based on Arm® Cortex-M4 cores with floating point units, DSP instruction sets, and memory protection units (MPUs) for enhanced application security. The Arm® Cortex-M0 + coprocessor is designed to handle the on-chip integration of IEEE 805.15.4 RF and MCUS for network protection, ensuring that real-time underlying software runs smoothly without affecting application performance. The RF transceiver has a link budget of 106dB, ensuring stable and reliable long-distance communication connections.

     ST's patented ultra-low power microcontroller technology and rich on-chip features, including RF Barron circuits, ensure that the STM32WB55 device can help designers meet the stringent power and size requirements of various IoT and wearable devices. The STM32WB55 has a wealth of analog and system peripherals, as well as network protection and ID cryptography capabilities, including secure Firmware installation (SFI), customer key storage, hardware Public Key Authorization (PKA), and encryption accelerators. Capacitive touch and LCD controllers also simplify user interface integration.

     ST's Zigbee 3.0 software is now included in the STM32CubeWB MCU package, which provides embedded software including the STM32WB Microcontroller Bottom Layer (LL) API and Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) drivers. As well as the Bluetooth®5.0, Mesh V1.0 and Thread® libraries, the FreeRTOS™ kernel, the FatFS file system, and the STMTouch™ integrated sensing software library. By providing STM32CubeMonitor-RF test tools and STM32CubeMX microcontroller configuration and code generation tools, the STM32Cube ecosystem makes development easier.