Need hep on project migrating.

[JLAlcaraz]

Hi all,
I have a project developed with an ESP8266 and a 1,8" TFT ST7735. I have also some devices connected to I2C bus and the ISP bus has the TFT and another device. The graphics used are BMP for differents menu options (The user can choose differents options, and every option has their own screen. Some bars moving up and down, some text and no need for 3d graphics nor video. The beter way I found for this is to work on Photohop, export as BMP and convert to RGB565 with a program. All data (program and graphics) are in oly one .bin file, and the final user can update the firmware more or less in an easy way :)
The project is finished, and works very well. But I'm discovering the STM32 MCUs family and I'm very impressed with them, so I'm thinking about migrating to these MCU. Some reasons are:
-Endless GPIOs to work
-Very well documented.
-Very powerfull MCU
-An integrated IDE supported by ST.

For the migrating, I'm thinking on the STM32F103 family, because they are very cheap an power enough.
My questions are:
1.-Can work together the STM32F103 with and 1,8"/2,3"/3,2" TFT screens?
2.-If yes, Is there a way to add external memory for the graphics (I'm using all the memory on the ESP8266, basically with the graphics data)?
3.-If yes, Will I can to upload all the .bin (program and graphics) with just one file)?
4.-Can I develope the graphics with the ugFX?
5.-Do you think will be better another family of STM32?

I'm very newbye with this, so any information will be welcome. If you can point me to the proper readings could be fantastic!

[Joel Bodenmann]

Hello and welcome to the µGFX community!

The answer to all your questions is: Yes.

µGFX has been written to run on virtually any system/platform. The STM32F103 is very well supported. In fact, when I started writing µGFX the initial development took place on an STM32F103RB6T.
However, while still working great the STM32F103 is "quite an old" chip by now. There have been several revisions on even basic things such as the SPI and I2C peripherals ever since then (and they provided huge improvements). If you could better state your requirements (especially in terms of memory & CPU resources) we might be able to recommend a "better" chip to you.
But keep in mind that this would just be optimizing: µGFX will definitely run just well within the environment that you described.

µGFX also allows you to compile your resources (eg. images) directly as part of the application itself using GFILE's ROMFS so you don't have to fiddle around with linker scripts.

[JLAlcaraz]

Thank you very much,  Joel, for your quick response.
The choose for the STM32F103 was for be very cheap.
In the project with the ESP8266 I use almost the 1mg memory, so I'll choose a MCU with 1Mg memory minim.
I need also OpAmps (1 or 2) and some comparators. I'll use 2 ISP devices, and 3 or 4 I2C devices. I want the finished device can be updated for the final user by USB, in an easy way (some electronic to avoid moving jumpers).

Wich MCU should I choose?

[Joel Bodenmann]

What exactly is "1mg" or "1Mg"?

If you also need OpAmps you might want to have a look at the "PSoC" series of Cypress. The PSoC 4, 5 and 6 all feature Cortex-M cores. Those devices come with your regular amount of peripherals (SPI, I2C, ...) but also feature programmable analog components such as OpAmps, comparators and so on.

There's a guide on how to use µGFX with the PSoC creator studio (their IDE) in our wiki.

[JLAlcaraz]

1Mg byte of memory.
I think series STMF303 have opamps and comparators too, but memory limit is 512kb.
I'm going to read about those PSoC, but I like the huge amount of information about STM32 series.
Have Cypress an IDE like CubeIDE or so??