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Graduate II
May 13, 2025
Solved

Nucleo 32 STM32L4 power consumption, measured with PPK

  • May 13, 2025
  • 4 replies
  • 902 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?

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    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

    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?

     

    DPiór.1Author
    Graduate II
    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? 

    Super User
    May 13, 2025

    All connections - SWD, NRST, etc.

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

    DPiór.1Author
    Graduate II
    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. 

    Super User
    May 14, 2025

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

    DPiór.1Author
    Graduate II
    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.1Author
    Graduate II
    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...