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Associate III
April 23, 2026
Solved

Is there an STM32 USB pen drive board with pin only for UART serial comms ?

  • April 23, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 216 views

hello ST Community,

There's an STM32 board in a USB pen drive format with a small flash memory capacity and only a few pins (3-5 pins) for UART serial communication. On this STM32 board, inside the USB pen drive, I can program the dedicated software for serial communication.

If it exists, can you tell me the model and serial number? I can't find it online.

Thanks for the information.

Best answer by Peter BENSCH

You probably mean a so-called Blue Pill of an Asian manufacturer, which has, for many years now, only been produced with counterfeit MCUs. Desperate users who wanted to save a few cents regularly ask in the Community for a solution to the major problems they have with it.

There are two ways to avoid these problems:

  1. Replace the counterfeit MCU with a genuine one
  2. Use a NUCLEO board, e.g. one of the NUCLEO-32

A NUCLEO always comes with a debugger as well, so the apparent price advantage quickly vanishes.
And they are guaranteed to work flawlessly.

Hope that helps?

Regards
/Peter

3 replies

Peter BENSCH
Peter BENSCHBest answer
Technical Moderator
April 23, 2026

You probably mean a so-called Blue Pill of an Asian manufacturer, which has, for many years now, only been produced with counterfeit MCUs. Desperate users who wanted to save a few cents regularly ask in the Community for a solution to the major problems they have with it.

There are two ways to avoid these problems:

  1. Replace the counterfeit MCU with a genuine one
  2. Use a NUCLEO board, e.g. one of the NUCLEO-32

A NUCLEO always comes with a debugger as well, so the apparent price advantage quickly vanishes.
And they are guaranteed to work flawlessly.

Hope that helps?

Regards
/Peter

Pavel A.
Super User
April 23, 2026

@Domy_ST Maybe this STM32C0 board can fit your description too. Genuine, fully supported.

PavelA_0-1776936994191.png

 

Domy_STAuthor
Associate III
April 23, 2026

Thanks

Andrew Neil
Super User
April 23, 2026

@Domy_ST wrote:

There's an STM32 board in a USB pen drive format with a small flash memory capacity and only a few pins (3-5 pins) for UART serial communication.


Is that supposed to be a question ?

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work.
Domy_STAuthor
Associate III
April 23, 2026

@Andrew Neil 

yes, what's wrong?

Andrew Neil
Super User
April 23, 2026

You wrote it as a statement: "There is..."

So you meant a question: "Is there... ?"

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work.