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About this document
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1.3 
About the STM32 Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals
The Cortex-M4 processor is a high performance 32-bit processor designed for the 
microcontroller market. It offers significant benefits to developers, including:
•
outstanding processing performance combined with fast interrupt handling
•
enhanced system debug with extensive breakpoint and trace capabilities
•
efficient processor core, system and memories
•
ultra-low power consumption with integrated sleep modes
•
platform security robustness, with integrated memory protection unit (MPU).
The Cortex-M4 processor is built on a high-performance processor core, with a 3-stage 
pipeline Harvard architecture, making it ideal for demanding embedded applications. The 
processor delivers exceptional power efficiency through an efficient instruction set and 
extensively optimized design, providing high-end processing hardware including IEEE754-
compliant single-precision floating-point computation, a range of single-cycle and SIMD 
multiplication and multiply-with-accumulate capabilities, saturating arithmetic and dedicated 
hardware division.
Figure 1. STM32 Cortex-M4 implementation
read/clear (rc_w1)
Software can read as well as clear this bit by writing 1.  
Writing ‘0’ has no effect on the bit value.
read/clear (rc_w0)
Software can read as well as clear this bit by writing 0.  
Writing ‘1’ has no effect on the bit value.
toggle (t)
Software can only toggle this bit by writing ‘1’. Writing ‘0’ has no effect.
Reserved (Res.)
Reserved bit, must be kept at reset value.
Embedded 
Trace Macrocell
NVIC
Debug 
access 
port
Memory
protection unit
Serial 
wire 
viewer
Bus matrix
Code 
interface
SRAM and 
peripheral interface
Data 
watchpoints
Flash
patch
Cortex-M4 
processor
FPU
Processor
core