About The Stm32 Cortex-M4 Processor And Core Peripherals; Figure 1. Stm32 Cortex-M4 Implementation - ST STM32F4 Series Programming Manual

PM0214
1.3

About the STM32 Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals

The Cortex-M4 processor is a high performance 32-bit processor designed for the
microcontroller market. It offers significant benefits to developers, including:
•
outstanding processing performance combined with fast interrupt handling
•
enhanced system debug with extensive breakpoint and trace capabilities
•
efficient processor core, system and memories
•
ultra-low power consumption with integrated sleep modes
•
platform security robustness, with integrated memory protection unit (MPU).
The Cortex-M4 processor is built on a high-performance processor core, with a 3-stage
pipeline Harvard architecture, making it ideal for demanding embedded applications. The
processor delivers exceptional power efficiency through an efficient instruction set and
extensively optimized design, providing high-end processing hardware including IEEE754-
compliant single-precision floating-point computation, a range of single-cycle and SIMD
multiplication and multiply-with-accumulate capabilities, saturating arithmetic and dedicated
hardware division.
To facilitate the design of cost-sensitive devices, the Cortex-M4 processor implements
tightly-coupled system components that reduce processor area while significantly improving
interrupt handling and system debug capabilities. The Cortex-M4 processor implements a
version of the Thumb
density and reduced program memory requirements. The Cortex-M4 instruction set
provides the exceptional performance expected of a modern 32-bit architecture, with the
high code density of 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers.
The Cortex-M4 processor closely integrates a configurable nested interrupt controller
(NVIC), to deliver industry-leading interrupt performance. The NVIC includes a non-
maskable interrupt (NMI), and provides up to 256 interrupt priority levels. The tight

Figure 1. STM32 Cortex-M4 implementation

Cortex-M4
processor
NVIC
Debug
access
protection unit
port
Flash
patch
Code
interface
®
instruction set based on Thumb-2 technology, ensuring high code
DocID022708 Rev 6
FPU
Embedded
Processor Trace Macrocell
core
Serial
Memory
wire
viewer
Data
watchpoints
Bus matrix
SRAM and
peripheral interface
About this document
13/260
259