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Renesas extends Bluetooth 5.0 security to RA 32-bit microcontrollers

Mon, May 11, 2020

Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity has been extended to the RA family of 32-bit microcontrollers by Renesas Electronics, with the introduction of the RA4W1, with an Arm Cortex-M core.

In addition to the 8MHz, 32-bit Arm Cortex-M4 core, it has an integrated Bluetooth 5.0 low energy radio and is delivered in a 56-pin QFN package. The RA4W1 microcontroller and Flexible Software Package (FSP) enables engineers to immediately begin development with Arm ecosystem software and hardware building blocks, says Renesas. FSP features FreeRTOS and middleware for device-to-cloud development. Renesas also points out that options can be replaced and expanded with any other RTOS or middleware.

The RA4W1 microcontroller allows embedded designers to develop safe and secure IoT endpoint devices for industry 4.0, building automation, metering, healthcare, consumer wearable and home appliance applications. It is intended for engineers developing IoT edge devices for wireless sensor networks, IoT hubs, an add-on to gateways and an aggregator to IoT cloud applications.

Sakae Ito, vice president of IoT Platform Business Division at Renesas, said that customers can use the on-chip features, such as Renesas’ Secure Crypto Engine. This feature supports customers with symmetric encryption and decryption, hash functions, true random number generation (TRNG), and advanced key handling with key generation and microcontroller-unique key wrapping for strong key management for IoT security. It also has what is claimed to be best-in-class output power consumption and sensitivity for secure, longer range applications.

The Arm Cortex M4 core and Bluetooth 5.0 core are housed in a 7.0 x 7.0mm 56-pin QFN. The single-chip RA4W1 48MHz microcontroller features 512 kbyte flash memory, 96 kbyte SRAM and connectivity such as USB, CAN and Renesas’ HMI capacitive touch technology.

Bluetooth 5.0 support includes 2 Mbits per second data throughput, all advertising extension functions with maximum advertising length (1,650 byte), periodic advertisements and channel selection algorithm #2 for applications requiring large amounts of traffic. The RA4W1 also offers low peak power consumption at 3.3mA during receiving and 4.5mA (at 0dBm) while transmitting. Renesas claims its sensitivity of -105dBm in 125 kbits per second mode is an industry best and is achieved without additional loss from external components.

Renesas provides several API functions that conform to all standard profiles, including a heart rate profile (HRP), an environment sensing profile (ESP) and an automation I/O profile (AIOP), to allow users to quickly start and speed up prototype development and evaluation.

Renesas’ Smart Configurator GUI generates Bluetooth code and microcontroller peripheral function driver code as well as pin settings for the e2 Studio integrated development environment (IDE). The Renesas QE tool for Bluetooth LE generates programs for custom profiles and embeds them in user application programs to support application program development. The Bluetooth Trial Tool Suite GUI allows users to perform initial wireless characteristics evaluations and Bluetooth functional verification. Users can typically have the RA4W1 evaluation board up and running with the downloadable smartphone applications demo in less than 30 minutes, says Renesas.

Integrating a high-precision, low-speed on-chip oscillator, an RF oscillator adjustment circuit and on-chip matching circuit for easy antenna connection reduces both bills of materials costs and circuit board area.

http://www.renesas.com

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Bluetooth beacons help hospitals track equipment

Wed, May 06, 2020

Keeping track – in real time – of medical equipment assets such as ventilators and defibrillators has never been more vital. Sixgill has developed Sense Hospital Asset Orchestration to track portable equipment to save time when it needs to be delivered quickly. The Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) AC plug-in wireless hub and ‘stick on’ beacon asset tracking solution uses Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF52832 SoC.

It tracks the location of assets within rooms and hallways using a technique based on Bluetooth LE beacon received signal strength indication (RSSI). All collated data is made available to hospital staff on a Sixgill-developed, cloud-based control panel. This graphically displays all tracked assets with colour-coded circles to show various status alerts (e.g. red to show assets that have been recently moved).

Sixgill says the rapid installation speed of its tracker is due to the simplicity of the drill- and screw-free design. This comprises two parts. First is AC plug-in wireless hubs based on a pass-through socket design. This is plugged into a single mains power socket in each room or hallway where asset tracking is required. Each one can cover a space of around 7.6 x 7.6m or 58m² (25 x 25 feet or 625 feet²). The mains plugs have a Nordic nRF52832 installed to look and listen for Bluetooth LE beacons, and Wi-Fi to communicate to the cloud.

The stick-on Bluetooth LE beacons are attached to any asset the hospital would like to track. The nRF52832 SoC’s low power consumption means each beacon does not need to be recharged once installed. Its battery will last three to five years depending on the duty cycle. The Sense solution is scalable to support an unlimited number of Bluetooth LE beacons.

“Now a hospital is able to capture all asset information, transmit data and alerts as needed to appropriate staff, and reduce if not eliminate errors and delays when delivering critical assets to where they are needed,” says Joan Silver, VP of product marketing at Sixgill. “By collecting meaningful data and analysing it over time hospitals are also able to gain insights that optimise their operational and planning efficiencies. Our solution even supports [artificial intelligence] AI and machine learning to continuously improve a hospital’s understanding of its portable asset utilisation patterns to enable prediction of needs during both normal operations and emergency surges.

“Wireless ultra-low power consumption removes customer objections to extensive new wiring or incessant battery maintenance,” added Silver.

http://www.sixgill.com

http://www.nordicsemi.com

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Microcontroller enables real-time control for smart cities, says Microchip

Wed, May 06, 2020

Core independent peripherals, advanced analogue and on-chip communications are integrated in the latest AVR microcontrollers from Microchip. The higher-performance microcontrollers are required for better real-time control as well as to enable enhanced human machine interface (HMI) applications, explains Microchip. The AVR DA family of microcontrollers is the company’s first functional safety-ready AVR microcontroller family with Peripheral Touch Controller (PTC).

The family of microcontrollers meets new demand across multiple industries with advanced analogue and core independent peripherals and more capacitive touch channels over existing devices, said Greg Robinson, associate vice president of marketing, 8-bit microcontroller business unit. Target applications are the connected home security, building automation and sensor systems to automotive and industrial automation.

Microchip’s Functional Safety Ready designation covers devices that incorporate the latest safety features and are supported by safety manuals, failure modes, effects, and diagnostic analysis (FMEDA) reports, and in some cases, diagnostic software. This reduces the time and cost of certifying safety end applications. The AVR DA microcontroller family includes several integrated safety functions to ensure robust operation to ensure a sufficient supply voltage such as power-on reset, brown-out detector and voltage-level monitor. The cyclic redundancy check (CRC) scan ensures the application code in the flash memory is valid. By ensuring code integrity, unintended and potentially unsafe behaviour of the application can be avoided.

The AVR DA family of microcontrollers enable CPU speeds of 24 MHz over the full supply voltage range, memory density of up to 128 kbyte flash, 16 kbyte SRAM and 512 bytes of EEPROM, 12-bit differential ADC, 10-bit DAC, analogue comparators and zero cross detectors.

The PTC enables capacitive touch interface designs supporting buttons, sliders, wheels, touchpads, smaller touch screens as well as gesture controls used in a wide range of consumer and industrial products and vehicles. The AVR DA family supports up to 46 self-capacitance and 529 mutual capacitive touch channels and features the latest generation PTC with Driven Shield+ and boost mode technologies to enhance noise immunity, water tolerance, touch sensitivity and response time, says Microchip.

For embedded real-time control systems, the integrated event system enables inter-peripheral communication without involving the CPU. Events are latency-free and never lost, for predictable, reliable and safe designs. By reducing the time the CPU needs be active, the overall power consumption of the application is reduced.

The configurable custom logic peripheral enables the set-up of logical functions internally, eliminating the need for external components, reducing board space and bill of material costs. With the advanced analogue features like the 12-bit differential ADC, the AVR DA family of microcontrollers can measure small amplitude signals in noisy environments, making them well suited for sensor node applications in harsh environments.

According to Microchip, the high memory density and SRAM-to-flash ratio make the microcontrollers attractive for both wireless and wired connected sensors nodes, as well as other stack-intensive applications.

Software support includes Microchip’s MPLAB X, MPLAB Xpress and Atmel Studio, code configuration tools including MCC and START, and compilers including GCC, XC8 and the IAR Embedded Workbench. A functional safety certified version of the XC8 compiler is available via Microchip’s Functional Safety Ready program. Hardware support is included in debuggers/programmers including MPLAB PICkit 4, MPLAB SNAP, Atmel ICE and the AVR128DA48 Curiosity Nano evaluation kit.

The AVR DA family of microcontrollers is available in volume production now.

http://www.microchip.com

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PMICs halve current to boost efficiency, says Silicon Labs

Wed, May 06, 2020

Energy-friendly power management ICs (PMICs) from Silicon Labs, the EFP01 family are companion chips for EFR32 wireless devices and EFM32 microcontrollers. They enable developers to choose the optimal battery type and chemistries for their applications. Target applications include IoT sensors, asset tags, smart meters, home and building automation, security, and health and wellness products. The PMICs also enable developers to control a product’s power supply over multiple output rails and voltages.

Developers often use PMICs to meet the low-power requirements of IoT designs, but choosing the right one can be challenging. The EFP01 PMICs “provide a turnkey power management companion solution for our wireless SoC and MCU families, combined with Simplicity Studio tools, reference designs, sample applications and ‘PMIC-aware’ wireless stacks for easy development,” said Matt Saunders, vice president of IoT marketing and applications at Silicon Labs.

“If you want the easiest to configure, lowest power wireless solution, Silicon Labs’ EFP01 PMIC with Wireless Gecko is the best choice,” he continued. “The EFP01 is optimised for our IoT connectivity platforms, eliminating the need to incorporate multiple vendor reference designs into a schematic or layout.”

EFP01 PMICs include low-voltage DC/DC converters and regulators and a flexible mechanism to manage the power rails in a system design.

The EFP01 PMIC family features include flexible I/O voltage, a wide input voltage range (0.8 to 5.5V) to support an array of batteries. They also have wide output voltages to support a variety of peripherals, microcontrollers and radios.

The PMICs enable buck and boost voltage conversion as well as combined boost and buck (boost bootstrap) supporting low-voltage, high-current rails for IoT products requiring coin cell batteries and higher transmit power (up to +20 dBm).

They also feature multiple output power rails which allows an IoT product to be powered by one low-cost PMIC. This uses less board real estate and simplifies software/hardware design, says Silicon Labs.

The EFP01 offers quiescent current as low as 150 nA to reduce sleep current and enhance battery life. It also supports coulomb counting which offers vital information for battery life estimation and preventive maintenance.

Samples and production quantities of EFP01 PMICs in a 3.0 x 3.0mm QFN20 package are available now. Silicon Labs also provides three development boards – the SLWRB4179B radio board and two PMIC evaluation boards. Simplicity Studio offers energy profiler and network analyser tools, wireless stacks and reference designs. It is available free of charge.

http://www.silabs.com

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Renesas extends Bluetooth 5.0 security to RA 32-bit microcontrollers

Bluetooth beacons help hospitals track equipment

Microcontroller enables real-time control for smart cities, says Microchip

PMICs halve current to boost efficiency, says Silicon Labs

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