Is STM8 recomendded for beginners?

[rabbi141]

I have experience with PIC and AVR microcontrollers, but they lack the good debug features of the STM8 series. Furthermore, these microcontrollers aren't cheap. While looking for simple and inexpensive chips, I keep coming across the STM8 series.

Mastering a new microcontroller takes time. I'm confused about learning the STM8 because STMicroelectronics is recommending their STM32 series, which uses the ARM Cortex-M core. This recommendation makes me wonder if investing time in the STM8 is a good idea, or if it would be better to learn the more widely-supported and future-proof STM32 family.

[Peter BENSCH · Accepted solution]

Welcome @rabbi141, to the community!

The STM8 and their tools are already very old, all date from the last millennium and are actually only useful for projects that are already running.

In fact, the STM32 mentioned are the much more modern MCUs, where you can look at one of the STM32C0 for simple applications, for example.

A warning in passing: questions regularly arise here in the community about so-called Blue Pill boards not working as desired. For years, only incompatible clones have been used for these products from Asian manufacturers.

If you want to start with a ready-made and 100% functional and supported board, I recommend one of the NUCLEO boards, e.g. a nice and cosy NUCLEO-32, each of which also contains an ST-LINK debugger.

Hope this helps?

Good luck
/Peter

[haimanTheSTM8]

In my opinion. I would say that investing your time and effort for the STM8 is a great idea. here's why:

The STM8 not use a specific core like his brother STM32. he use the classic CISC architecture making your journey of understanding it is worth it. I also use the STM8, specifically STM8L101K3T3. beside CISC architecture there are RISC architecture. both have their pros and cons. but it all the same. we all know the technology growth so fast past few years. to undertand all register of STM32N657X0 is absolutely amazing but to build fundamental concept is also essential is more preferable. it all build with transistor. i bit data is stored using some gate called latch. continue to combine them you get memory. "the computer has no standard". "if there's 100 company there will be 101 different architecture". all that is positive. keep up the good work @rabbi141 and STMicroelectronics!

[Andrew Neil]

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@haimanTheSTM8 wrote:

The STM8 not use a specific core like his brother STM32. 

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What do you mean by that?

Of course it is a specific core - also a proprietary one.

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@haimanTheSTM8 wrote:

"the computer has no standard". "if there's 100 company there will be 101 different architecture". 

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That, surely, is an advantage for STM32 - instead of yet another proprietary architecture (like STM8), it uses the industry-standard Cortex-M.

Apart from the hardware, there's also the tools to consider.

This recent example suggests that the tooling is not up to modern standards.

[Andrew Neil]

As we're waking up this old thread ...

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@rabbi141 wrote:

I have experience with ... AVR microcontrollers, but they lack the good debug features of the STM8 series.

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Not sure that you mean by that?

AVRs certainly have good on-chip debug ...