STMicroelectronics has launched the Stellar P3E, an innovative automotive MCU featuring an integrated Neural-ART AI accelerator, aimed at streamlining X-in-1 Electronic Control Units (ECUs) by merging powertrain functions such as the inverter, on-board charger (OBC), and DC-DC converter into a single module. This MCU supports smart sensing, predictive maintenance, and virtual sensor applications without the added cost and complexity of using a separate SoC.
Equipped with four 500 MHz Arm Cortex-R52+ cores and 19.5 MB of xMemory, based on phase-change memory (PCM) that offers approximately double the density of embedded flash, the microcontroller includes multiple ADC channels for accurate sensing, high-resolution PWM down to 102 ps for precise motor control, and 10 timer modules for consistent real-time operations. Connectivity features include Gigabit Ethernet and CAN-XL for high-speed, low-latency vehicle communication.
Stellar P3E (SR6P3EC4/SR6P3EC6) specifications:
- MCU – SR6P3EC4 / SR6P3EC6
- CPU Cores – 4x Arm Cortex‑R52+ cores up to 500 MHz; Configurable as 4 cores (2 in lockstep) or 3 cores (all in lockstep)
- Single precision floating-point unit (FPU)
- Hardware-based virtualization for software isolation in SDV applications
- 16KB I-cache / 8KB D-cache per core
- 128KB TCM per core
- AI accelerator – Proprietary Neural-ART NPU (INT8)
- 1x Arm Cortex-M4 multipurpose core at 200 MHz in lockstep for low-power modes and COM acceleration
- CPU Cores – 4x Arm Cortex‑R52+ cores up to 500 MHz; Configurable as 4 cores (2 in lockstep) or 3 cores (all in lockstep)
- Memory and Storage
- Up to 19.5MB xMemory (PCM-based NVM)
- Up to 19MB code NVM with A/B swap OTA support
- 512KB HSM-dedicated NVM
- Up to 1792KB SRAM
- 384KB data NVM (256KB + 128KB HSM)
- Built-in dual-image OTA mechanism
- Up to 19.5MB xMemory (PCM-based NVM)
- Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet with AVB, VLAN, and 10BASE-T1S (SPE).
- Peripherals
- Up to 106x analog input channels
- 12x 12-bit SAR ADCs
- 10x 16-bit Sigma-Delta