STM32 processors have traditionally been M-series 32-bit ARM cores including M7. I don't know if there have been any exceptions before this. But A-series is application processors with MMU's, DRAM interfaces, etc.

STM8 is still a thing and they were popular cheap embedded boards before ESP32 took over. They were ok as a cheap alternative to Arduino-compatible AVR boards. I have a few of the boards around. They were around $1 each on Aliexpress and have 8K of flash and 1K of ram, which is enough to run interactive Forth, and there's an SDCC compiler target for them.