STM8S and STM8L microcontrollers were NRND, now in active production again

[spostma]

good news for for STM8 friends; on the german mikrocontroller.net forum
I read that the STM8S and STM8L microcontrollers are back into active production:
https://www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/567407#7660429
https://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/search.html#q=stm8-t=products-page=1

[prosper]

the '10 year' guarantee still says it expires in the 2032, though. So - typo, or still effectively NRND?

Regardless, they do appear to be in mass production and available at low price...

[PCB.Wiz]

 Maybe ST found customers were not moving to their lower supply range claimed 32b alternatives, but instead going to other vendor's wide supply parts ?

Plus the downturn has meant FAB capacity must be looking for wafers to run.
'Go Away' pricing has probably gone too...

Interesting times.


 

[prosper]

My guess is that someone jumped the gun on NRND-ing STM8.

Supposedly, the STM32C series is the successor to the STM8. I hear that (at least some) are pin-compatible with the STM8's. However, they're NOT 5V MCU's, which means you can't just port the firmware and drop one into all existing designs. Also, they don't yet seem to be as widely available or as inexpensive as they're hyped to be.


The STM8 really found its market in China, in the 'cheap gadget' segment, powering thermostats, timers, PID controllers, soldering irons, etc. I suspect that that market is now dead to Western chips, given the current geopolitics, not to mention the plethora of μber-cheap 5V pin-compatible asian 8051/M0/RV MCUs. By killing STM8, they're just accelerating the move to non-STM alternatives.

[Sacodepatatas]

Supposedly, the STM32C series is the successor to the STM8.

They claimed that the STM32C series were the lowest end MCU, and they decided to make it pin compatible with the more powerful STM32G series... But it happens that the STM32G is even cheaper than the STM32C, yielding to a paradox. But i guess that they tried to solve that issue by raising the prices of the STM32G family, a bad idea though. The STM32G030F6P6 can already be found in Ali at 0.35€/piece in quantities of 100.

[PCB.Wiz]

My guess is that someone jumped the gun on NRND-ing STM8.

Supposedly, the STM32C series is the successor to the STM8. I hear that (at least some) are pin-compatible with the STM8's. However, they're NOT 5V MCU's, which means you can't just port the firmware and drop one into all existing designs. Also, they don't yet seem to be as widely available or as inexpensive as they're hyped to be.


The STM8 really found its market in China, in the 'cheap gadget' segment, powering thermostats, timers, PID controllers, soldering irons, etc. I suspect that that market is now dead to Western chips, given the current geopolitics, not to mention the plethora of μber-cheap 5V pin-compatible asian 8051/M0/RV MCUs. By killing STM8, they're just accelerating the move to non-STM alternatives.

Yes, there has been an explosion in the number of '003' pinout micros, and customers having been burnt by a NRND on a STM part, will next look to a second-sourced pinout choice.
When a market is growing, management decisions can be cloaked, but when a downturn hits, their choices are more exposed.

[Doctorandus_P]

I bought a bunch of STM8 uC's recently on an impulse. Price was "right", I like the 5V compatibility, the relatively simple architecture, while still having similar peripherals to STM32 and on board EEPROM. What I really don't like though is that they don't work with GCC. I know that SDCC is a capable compiler these days, but I'm not really in a mood to learn another compiler and it's quircks just for some (semi random) uC family.

[SiliconWizard]

This isn't too surprising. It's been like this for decades for the major tech vendors. The inertia in product development is gigantic in many areas and the major vendors have to support old tech for a very long time. Only the small ones can afford not to. Just the way it is. I for one would certainly not miss STM8 MCUs compared to their newer alternatives, but that's all a matter of organization and product line. If you have products that sell well and that you don't intend to spend a dime on redesigning, then having access to oldish chips is a must.

I doubt though that there would be many clients outside of that case - like, designing a brand new product around a STM8, except maybe if you are a company with a lot of experience with these, which then gets half back to the above point.