STMicroelectronics sells two billion microcontrollers

STMicroelectronics (ST) has surpassed two billion unit sales of its STM8 microcontrollers less than two years after reaching one billion unit sales, noting particularly strong success in China. Aided by the accelerated sales, ST’s share of the general-purpose microcontroller market has grown to 12.7% in 2015 from 8.2% in 2013, according to World Semiconductor Trade Statistics.

The STM8 serves as an electronic brain for smart devices in daily use throughout the world, such as whitegoods, consumer products, automotive control units (ECUs) and industrial controls. It combines good computing power with support for memory-efficient coding, low power consumption, high feature integration, versatile configurations and a development ecosystem that facilitates design, debug and prototyping.

According to ST, the large number of devices shipped reflects the microcontroller’s appeal to OEMs serving high-volume markets, its integration into a wide variety of projects and the hard work of ST’s distributors worldwide. Sales performance has been particularly impressive in China through microcontroller distributors Willas-Array, Wintech and Yosun, targeting products for the country’s domestic market as well as for export.

Daniel Colonna, ST’s microcontrollers marketing director, commented that the STM8 has “become one of the world’s most popular microcontrollers and is a sturdy pillar of our strategy”.

“As with all of our MCUs, we are committed to supporting STM8 for the long term, and we’ll continue to strengthen our market position,” Colonna said.