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Maxime_MARCHETTO
ST Employee
May 15, 2025

New strategic directions for STM32Cube

  • May 15, 2025
  • 26 replies
  • 14078 views

We are pleased to share some exciting developments in STM32Cube that will enhance your development experience and unlock the rich features of STM32 microcontrollers even further.

Transition to FreeRTOS and enhanced middleware offerings

We are moving back to FreeRTOS™ as the main kernel, integrating it with USBX, FileX, and LWIP. This strategic shift will help us build a consistent middleware offering, set to be introduced before the end of this year. Notably, USBX and FileX will be available in both bare metal and RTOS-agnostic versions, providing greater flexibility and adaptability for your projects.

In parallel, we continue our investment in supporting leading open-source frameworks.

Launch of STM32Cube version 3 for Visual Studio Code

We are thrilled to announce the release of STM32Cube for VS Code, marking version 3 of the existing STM32 VS Code extension. This substantial upgrade is built on a new modular foundation, enabling you to selectively choose features and manage updates and installations with greater precision. The modularity boosts flexibility, streamlines updates, reduces setup time, and optimizes disk space usage, all while paving the way for a more ambitious STM32Cube VS Code roadmap.

Key benefits

Easy to deploy and maintain

  • Simplify the installation process by selecting a single extension pack for the complete STM32Cube for VS Code experience
  • Reduce maintenance effort with automatic installation of CLI tool dependencies and straightforward update workflows

Lightweight and fast

  • Experience a best-in-class and efficient C/C++ editing interface with VS Code
  • Leverage CMake-based build tools, a growing trend in C/C++ embedded industry, offering flexibility and fast builds

 Effortless STM32 debugging

  • Launch debug sessions on single-core STM32 devices without any setup required
  • Customize debug configurations easily with a content-assist powered editor

The new version is available today as a preview and will be continuously upgraded to surpass STM32CubeIDE features, aiming to become the main STM32 free IDE. During this transition period, STM32CubeIDE will be maintained. Currently, STM32CubeIDE is the best debugger for STM32 microcontrollers and can be used side-by-side with VS Code.

We are committed to supporting your development journey with these enhancements and look forward to seeing the innovative solutions you create with STM32Cube.

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to evolve and improve our offerings.

Additional resources

First published on May 15, 2025

 

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    26 replies

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    L
    Loic CHOSSAT
    ST Employee
    May 20, 2025

    @mbarg.1 For STM32CubeH7, X-CUBE-AZRTOS-H7 with rev 6.4.0 is available.

    P
    Pavel A.
    Super User
    May 20, 2025

    @NRedd.2 

    > It is confusing to me as to why ST would go away from this when ThreadX is also open source now. 

    Because of complexity? 

    @Loic CHOSSAT Has FreeRTOS Plus been considered? At least the FreeRTOS-Plus-TCP, FreeRTOS-plus-FAT?

      N
      NRedd.2
      Graduate II
      May 20, 2025

      @Pavel A. 

      I agree that it is complex, but it is also mature and stable in my opinion as it was a commercial offering before it was open sourced.

      I had no issues with NetX and STM32 so far. Probably the driver was very well written. Also, USBx works really well. Just based on these examples, we were able to build production ready products in a short time. 

        M
        m_vural
        Visitor II
        June 22, 2025

        Hi @Loic CHOSSAT 
        I'd like to understand what this practically means? I'm trying to follow STM32 Middleware direction slide at the end of your post.

        - I see that AZROS/ThreadX is still the solution for H7, F7, F4 families. Can you confirm? Is this going to also change in the future and converge to FreeRTOS? 

        - What would be the ST's RTOS selection if I have to start developing an application/library today that needs to work on both H7 and H5 families?

        Best, Murat

          D
          David Littell
          Graduate II
          June 28, 2025

          Lashing yourself to the FreeRTOS albatross was the wrongest of wrong decisions.  You should have standardized on the CMSIS-RTOS2 API.  With the proper shims in place then developers could choose Azure whatever, ThreadX, sickening hungarian QuirkTOS (FreeRTOS), or the best answer, RTX5.

          "Got all the way to goal line...then dropped the ball."

            J
            jos_
            Visitor II
            June 28, 2025

            Really not understandable this move... and the explanation even less... what a shame

              A
              Andrei Chichak
              Graduate II
              July 9, 2025

              Can you give a finer timeline for the availability of FileX/LevelX and USBX integration with FreeRTOS, other than just before the end of the year?

              I'm starting to rewrite a couple of projects that were going to ThreadX for a little bit of future-proofing, now going back to FreeRTOS (which is fine). But I see that the latest CubeMX still ties FileX and USBX with the enabling of ThreadX.

              I can work around it for now (or switch to FatFS and classic USB), but it would be nice to be able to rearrange my time to have the components show up.

                L
                Loic CHOSSAT
                ST Employee
                July 10, 2025

                @Andrei Chichak  Please have a look at the preliminary release of RTOS agnostic versions of USBX and FileX/LevelX on ST GitHub. 

                See eclipse_usbx branch here: https://github.com/STMicroelectronics/stm32-mw-usbx/branches.

                Same for FileX and LevelX: https://github.com/STMicroelectronics/stm32-mw-filex/branches

                and https://github.com/STMicroelectronics/stm32-mw-levelx/branches

                First examples with FreeRTOS will become available in few weeks for STM32H5. Stay tuned.

                  A
                  Asantos
                  Visitor II
                  August 14, 2025

                  Hi Loic,

                  When will the version of STM32CubeMx that will allow to create projects for the H5 including LwIP, FreeRTOS and USB be available?

                  Ari

                  L
                  Loic CHOSSAT
                  ST Employee
                  October 8, 2025

                  @Asantos There is no plan for that. On the STM32H5, you can not use STM32CubeMX to configure latest USBX RTOS-agnostic version and LwIP

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