STM32 10 year commitment and planned obsolescence

[mikeselectricstuff]

I usually look at what is being stocked in reasonable quantities at companies like Farnell, Mouser, Digikey, etc. These devices are appearantly popular (or will be due to availability). BTW the first ARM devices NXP came up with (LPC2103/LPC2104) are still available from Farnell after 10 years or so.

Though NXP did some nasties along the way with slighly "improved" /01 (I think that's what it was called) versions of the earlier ARM7 parts which were slightly incompatible.
In one case, they fixed a bug that was 100% work-roundable with a trivial code change, and so never needed "fixing" but of course the fixed version of the chip broke code that had the workaround.

[chickenHeadKnob]

Infineon were promising 15 year lifetime for their XMC products, they appear to have backed off that and any mention of lifetime has been expunged from their website.

This is a timely thread, does anyone know whats going to happen to the XMC4200? I was looking at it today comparing it to the STM32F334 as both have high resolution PWM, but mouser warns:
End of Life: Scheduled for obsolescence and will be discontinued by the manufacture
for most parts in the 4200/4100 series. Just checked again and at least one QFN48 packaged part doesn't have the warning but the QFP64's do. Huh?

[MT]

In one case, they fixed a bug that was 100% work-roundable with a trivial code change, and so never needed "fixing" but of course the fixed version of the chip broke code that had the workaround.

Seams to apply to ST as well, 10 year old erratas (e.g STM32F429 now into Rev15) never get fixed ,will break code but then ST surprisingly just transfers F429 bad erratas to "so called new designs" such as F446 and the F405, F407,F446 etc terrible ADC gets fixed with F415, F417 etc!?! Huh, i dont like ST's half arsed fixing behavior, why just bother to fix these two and not 446!?

[technix]

In one case, they fixed a bug that was 100% work-roundable with a trivial code change, and so never needed "fixing" but of course the fixed version of the chip broke code that had the workaround.

Seams to apply to ST as well, 10 year old erratas (e.g STM32F429 now into Rev15) never get fixed ,will break code but then ST surprisingly just transfers F429 bad erratas to "so called new designs" such as F446 and the F405, F407,F446 etc terrible ADC gets fixed with F415, F417 etc!?! Huh, i dont like ST's half arsed fixing behavior, why just bother to fix these two and not 446!?

If a chip is a strict subset of another, it is entirely possible that the subset chip is packaged from the full-featured die, with some featured disabled. This way a chip with partial failure can be salvaged and sold at a reduced price instead of going straight to the garbage bin.

[coppice]

In one case, they fixed a bug that was 100% work-roundable with a trivial code change, and so never needed "fixing" but of course the fixed version of the chip broke code that had the workaround.

Seams to apply to ST as well, 10 year old erratas (e.g STM32F429 now into Rev15) never get fixed ,will break code but then ST surprisingly just transfers F429 bad erratas to "so called new designs" such as F446 and the F405, F407,F446 etc terrible ADC gets fixed with F415, F417 etc!?! Huh, i dont like ST's half arsed fixing behavior, why just bother to fix these two and not 446!?

If a chip is a strict subset of another, it is entirely possible that the subset chip is packaged from the full-featured die, with some featured disabled. This way a chip with partial failure can be salvaged and sold at a reduced price instead of going straight to the garbage bin.

These days a single MCU die is generally used in quite a large range of distinct part types. It is seldom economic to bin them out, according to where defects are found, though. They generally just test a wafer against the spec of the final part it is going to become, and package everything that passes.

[westfw]

If you want to be really paranoid, you could worry that the sale of ARM and MIPS may cause the elimination of (relatively un-profitable) 32bit microcontrollers entirely.

[technix]

In one case, they fixed a bug that was 100% work-roundable with a trivial code change, and so never needed "fixing" but of course the fixed version of the chip broke code that had the workaround.

Seams to apply to ST as well, 10 year old erratas (e.g STM32F429 now into Rev15) never get fixed ,will break code but then ST surprisingly just transfers F429 bad erratas to "so called new designs" such as F446 and the F405, F407,F446 etc terrible ADC gets fixed with F415, F417 etc!?! Huh, i dont like ST's half arsed fixing behavior, why just bother to fix these two and not 446!?

If a chip is a strict subset of another, it is entirely possible that the subset chip is packaged from the full-featured die, with some featured disabled. This way a chip with partial failure can be salvaged and sold at a reduced price instead of going straight to the garbage bin.

These days a single MCU die is generally used in quite a large range of distinct part types. It is seldom economic to bin them out, according to where defects are found, though. They generally just test a wafer against the spec of the final part it is going to become, and package everything that passes.

What I mean here is that the ones not quite passing isn’t tossed either.

[donotdespisethesnake]

This is a timely thread, does anyone know whats going to happen to the XMC4200? I was looking at it today comparing it to the STM32F334 as both have high resolution PWM, but mouser warns:
End of Life: Scheduled for obsolescence and will be discontinued by the manufacture
for most parts in the 4200/4100 series. Just checked again and at least one QFN48 packaged part doesn't have the warning but the QFP64's do. Huh?

I think that specifically refers to AB revisions, which are replaced by rev BA due to manufacturing site change. See https://media.digikey.com/pdf/PCNs/Infineon/2015-064-A.pdf

As far as I can tell, all the XMC parts are still active.

[coppice]

These days a single MCU die is generally used in quite a large range of distinct part types. It is seldom economic to bin them out, according to where defects are found, though. They generally just test a wafer against the spec of the final part it is going to become, and package everything that passes.

What I mean here is that the ones not quite passing isn’t tossed either.

Actually, they are usually tossed. With raw die yield percentages in the 80s and 90s, which is what you get for a typical MCU sized die in a reasonably mature process, there aren't enough "this fails if you test it as a die for X, but we could reuse it as a die for Y" situations to justify the cost of handling them. With really big dies, like Pentiums, respinning a partially defective die becomes more interesting. Even there it seems to be mostly done just for speed grading these days. We don't see 3 core parts from AMD or Intel any more.

[MT]

In one case, they fixed a bug that was 100% work-roundable with a trivial code change, and so never needed "fixing" but of course the fixed version of the chip broke code that had the workaround.

Seams to apply to ST as well, 10 year old erratas (e.g STM32F429 now into Rev15) never get fixed ,will break code but then ST surprisingly just transfers F429 bad erratas to "so called new designs" such as F446 and the F405, F407,F446 etc terrible ADC gets fixed with F415, F417 etc!?! Huh, i dont like ST's half arsed fixing behavior, why just bother to fix these two and not 446!?

If a chip is a strict subset of another, it is entirely possible that the subset chip is packaged from the full-featured die, with some featured disabled. This way a chip with partial failure can be salvaged and sold at a reduced price instead of going straight to the garbage bin.

Thats not what i'm talking about, rather point is 446 is not entirely a "dont-toss-re-labeled part" since it has power regulator,quadspi,SPDIF-RX ,etc the other F4's/F429 dont have so i assumed to get these features ST had to do new mask sets/new wafers. There is a migration paper for 429 to 446, so in this case of 429 vs 446 situation is reverse else why would ST fuse out/omit features in older F429 and then enable them in later products such as F446 if they both came from same wafer as you assume? New type of (reverse) marketing strategy?  I suspect they do not come from same wafer! For 415-417, well since ST mentioned in a post on their forum i think it was, they had fixed the ADC in them while 405,407,429,446 had not...but:

Disclaimer: I do not know to 100% if ST telling the truth or not about ADC fix i just saw a post about it.

[technix]

In one case, they fixed a bug that was 100% work-roundable with a trivial code change, and so never needed "fixing" but of course the fixed version of the chip broke code that had the workaround.

Seams to apply to ST as well, 10 year old erratas (e.g STM32F429 now into Rev15) never get fixed ,will break code but then ST surprisingly just transfers F429 bad erratas to "so called new designs" such as F446 and the F405, F407,F446 etc terrible ADC gets fixed with F415, F417 etc!?! Huh, i dont like ST's half arsed fixing behavior, why just bother to fix these two and not 446!?

If a chip is a strict subset of another, it is entirely possible that the subset chip is packaged from the full-featured die, with some featured disabled. This way a chip with partial failure can be salvaged and sold at a reduced price instead of going straight to the garbage bin.

Thats not what i'm talking about, rather point is 446 is not entirely a "dont-toss-re-labeled part" since it has power regulator,quadspi,SPDIF-RX ,etc the other F4's/F429 dont have so i assumed to get these features ST had to do new mask sets/new wafers. There is a migration paper for 429 to 446, so in this case of 429 vs 446 situation is reverse else why would ST fuse out/omit features in older F429 and then enable them in later products such as F446 if they both came from same wafer as you assume? New type of (reverse) marketing strategy?  I suspect they do not come from same wafer! For 415-417, well since ST mentioned in a post on their forum i think it was, they had fixed the ADC in them while 405,407,429,446 had not...but:

Disclaimer: I do not know to 100% if ST telling the truth or not about ADC fix i just saw a post about it.

Is F439/417 newer than F446? If this is the case the ADC fix did not make it towards the deadline of F446 tape-out date so got delayed to the F439 instead. F415/417 are simple cut down versions of F439.

[pigrew]

What is the F446 ADC problem? I'm thinking about using the nucleo board in a project for a client. (I'm building five prototypes for them). The errata sheet mentioned the control registers shouldn't be changed during conversions, is that it? 

[MT]

Is F439/417 newer than F446?

Who knows what came when, some dates are mentioned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STM32

If this is the case the ADC fix did not make it towards the deadline of F446 tape-out date so got delayed to the F439 instead.

In reality nobody outside ST have the slightest clue how ST handel this, we can only guess whats going on.

F415/417 are simple cut down versions of F439.

Previously i had assume 446 was cut down/fuse off peripheral/same wafer of 429 but it seams not to.

What is the F446 ADC problem?

All F4 series have a noisy ADC, there are 2 papers from ST, survey the web its lot about the issue.

I'm thinking about using the nucleo board in a project for a client.

Dont, your just asking for major problems, to get ADC reasonable you need to do a well thought out PCB layout.
Im still battling my design, noise is partly software dependent, great isn't it?.

(I'm building five prototypes for them). The errata sheet mentioned the control registers shouldn't be changed during conversions, is that it?

Certainly not.