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DPiór.1
Associate III
May 13, 2025
Solved

Nucleo 32 STM32L4 power consumption, measured with PPK

  • May 13, 2025
  • 4 replies
  • 903 views

I have a Nucleo 32 board with STM32L432KC. I am using Power Profiler Kit II to measure the power consumption. I connected PPK Vout to Nucleo's 5V (pin 4 on CN4), GND to GND and the PPK is set as a source meter.

Program on MCU is running for 2s in RUN mode (80 MHz, LED on) and then for 2s in STOP 2 mode (LED off).

Code to enter the STOP 2 mode:

HAL_SuspendTick();
HAL_GPIO_WritePin(GPIOB, GPIO_PIN_3, GPIO_PIN_RESET);
HAL_PWREx_EnterSTOP2Mode(PWR_STOPENTRY_WFI);

RTC and GPIO are used to wake up:

if(HAL_RTCEx_SetWakeUpTimer_IT(&hrtc, 0x02000, RTC_WAKEUPCLOCK_RTCCLK_DIV16) != HAL_OK)
{
 printf("Error setting RTC wakeup timer\n");
 Error_Handler();
}
else
{
 printf("RTC wakeup timer set\n");
}
void HAL_GPIO_EXTI_Callback(uint16_t GPIO_Pin)
{
 UNUSED(GPIO_Pin);

 if(GPIO_Pin == GPIO_PIN_12)
 {
	 SystemClock_Config();
	 HAL_ResumeTick();
 }
}

void HAL_RTCEx_WakeUpTimerEventCallback(RTC_HandleTypeDef *hrtc)
{
 UNUSED(hrtc);

 SystemClock_Config();
 HAL_ResumeTick();
}

On top of that the RTC Calendar is used to get the hour:

HAL_RTC_GetTime(&hrtc, &time, RTC_FORMAT_BIN);
HAL_RTC_GetDate(&hrtc, &date, RTC_FORMAT_BIN);
wakeup_current_time = time.Minutes * 60 + time.Seconds;

 

PPK shows that the power consumption for RUN mode is 12,8 mA, which I think is ok. However the power consumption for STOP 2 mode is 2,6 mA which is very high. According to the spec it should be 1,4 uA. Why is it like that? What am I missing?

Best answer by Andrew Neil

All connections - SWD, NRST, etc.

See the schematics, and check for anything else which might be "leaking" current.

4 replies

Andrew Neil
Super User
May 13, 2025

@DPiór.1 wrote:

I am using Power Profiler Kit II 


You mean the Nordic Semi Power Profiler: https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-hardware/Power-Profiler-Kit-2 ?

As this is ST's forum, best not to assume that people will automatically know what that is!

 


@DPiór.1 wrote:

 I connected PPK Vout to Nucleo's 5V (pin 4 on CN4)


Have you made sure to disconnect all connections to the ST-Link?

 

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.
DPiór.1
DPiór.1Author
Associate III
May 13, 2025

Hi @Andrew Neil 

Yes, I mean the Nordic Power Profiler Kit II.

About which connections to ST-Link are you talking about? 

Andrew Neil
Andrew NeilBest answer
Super User
May 13, 2025

All connections - SWD, NRST, etc.

See the schematics, and check for anything else which might be "leaking" current.

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.
DPiór.1
DPiór.1Author
Associate III
May 14, 2025

Thanks for the hints @Andrew Neil 

I removed SB14, if I understand the schematics correctly, this causes that ST-Link and power LED are not powered now. PPK Vout is connected now to 3V (pin 14 on CN4). The results are much better: power consumption in RUN mode is 9,16 mA and in STOP 2 mode ~21 uA (with peaks over 200uA, see attached image). Still the power consumption for STOP 2 mode seems to be too big. Any suggestions what else can be causing this? I don't see anything else on the schematics that could cause current leak.

I plan to remove SB2 and SB3 to disconnect VCP to ST-Link, but I don't think that this will change anything. 

Andrew Neil
Super User
May 14, 2025

You'll need more than just one disconnection - there's probably at least 4 connections: SWDIO, SWCLK, NRST, MCO ...

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.
DPiór.1
DPiór.1Author
Associate III
May 14, 2025

NRST I already disconnected before. I don't see any option on the board to disconnect SWDIO, SWCLK, MCO.

I removed SB2 and SB3 and the power consumption in STOP 2 mode is higher - ~50 uA

 

P.S.

Power consumption for RUN mode is slightly lower than in the specification :)

DPiór.1
DPiór.1Author
Associate III
May 14, 2025

Anyway after removing SB14 the power consumption dropped from 2,6 mA to ~21 uA. This means that indeed the problem was on the board - other components were consuming the current. Thank you @Andrew Neil for the guidance.

At the moment 21 uA is good enough for me, I will not continue investigating this. 

 

I just wonder why after removing SB2 and SB3 the power consumption increase 2x...