> One quirk: the software would always overshoot when reading. A STM32F205RB has 128KB of flash, but the tool would happily read past that boundary, padding everything beyond it with 0xFF. The actual flash contents within the valid 128KB region were correct though, so it's easy enough to just trim the output to the right size.

This is likely because in many cases, ST will sell microcontrollers with more flash than advertised. For example, the STM32F103C8 on the popular "bluepill" dev board is advertised as having 64 KB of flash. It actually has 128 KB of flash because it's the same chip as the STM32F103CB (this simplifies manufacturing because they can use the same die for both), it's just that ST never tested the second half of flash. In most cases you can use the second half of flash and it'll work just fine, but obviously it's not something you'd want to rely on for a commercial product.

I'd guess they also bin the 128KB flash so that when a defect occurs, they just use the other half so they can improve yields.

> the STM32F103C8

> the STM32F103CB

Damn I have a hard time visually telling these two apart and I'm on a computer...