IoT

Optiga Connect 5G authenticates mobile consumer devices

Mon, Mar 16, 2020

Infineon has extended its embedded SIM (eSIM) portfolio, adding the Optiga Connect eSIM for mobile consumer devices. It supports all GSMA standards from 3G to 5G and securely authenticates the device to the chosen subscribed carrier network of choice. It has a small imprint, making it suitable for smartphones, tablets and wearable devices (smart watches or fitness trackers).

Based on Infineon’s SLC37 security chip, the new Optiga Connect meets the GSMA’s security requirements and is tested according to Common Criteria CC EAL4+ high. The SLC37 secures sensitive keys and data against fraudulent use. The Optiga Connect eSIM complies with the latest 5G specifications from the GSMA (SIMAlliance Profile Interoperability 2.3 Spec) and the 3GPP. It supports the profiles of major mobile network providers with Remote SIM Provisioning capabilities and offers up to 1.2Mbyte of free user memory for network operator profiles, data and additional applications. The package measures just 2.9 x 2.5 x 0.4mm for the restricted PCB space of many new consumer applications.

ABI Research predicts that global shipments of eSIM enabled smartphones will reach over 225 million in 2020 and it expects a minimum of 500 million eSIM-capable smartphones to ship gloabally in 2024.

The Optiga Connect eSIM consumer chip be available from March 2020.

http://www.infineon.com

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STM32L4+ microcontrollers bring Cortex-M4 performance to smart devices

Mon, Mar 16, 2020

Two microcontrollers from STMicroelectronics, the STM32L4P5 and STM32L4Q5 microcontrollers bring the performance of the Arm Cortex-M4 core to cost-sensitive and power-conscious smart connected devices, says the company. Target applications include utility meters, industrial and medical sensors, fitness trackers, and smart home products.

The STM32L4+ microcontrollers have memory density down to 512kbyte flash and 320kbyte SRAM. They are available in a choice of package options: 10 x 10mm, 64-pin and 7.0 x 7.0mm, 48-pin versions designed to meet applications limited by size constraints such as wearable form factors.

They have independent power connections for circuitry such as USB and analogue peripherals, independent clock domains, and octal and quad serial peripheral interfaces (SPIs) for external memory expansion. They also feature a 5Msample/s smart ADC that can operate at full speed to minimise acquisition time, or at reduced speed with lower current.

The STM32L4+ microcontrollers exploit ST’s low-power microcontroller technologies and feature seven main low-power modes, enabling designers to creatively manage power consumption and wake-up times to minimise energy demand. The microcontrollers also support FlexPowerControl, which ensures energy-efficient handling of processing loads, as well as batch acquisition mode for energy-efficient data capture while the CPU is stopped.

To preserve system reliability and safety in industrial and medical applications, the STM32L4+ microcontrollers have flash error-correcting code (ECC) support and hardware parity checking for SRAM.

Cyber-protection features include a true random number generator and IP protection through limited access to code stored in internal memory. STM32L4Q5 devices feature additional cryptographic accelerators that support AES, RSA, DH and ECC acceleration.

The STM32 development ecosystem now includes the Nucleo-L4P5ZG Nucleo-144 board and STM32L4P5G-DK Discovery kit, each containing an STM32L4P5 microcontroller.

In the STM32Cube ecosystem, the STM32L4P5 and STM32L4Q5 are supported by the STM32CubeL4 microcontroller package, which contains hardware abstraction layer and low-layer (HAL/LL) peripheral drivers, middleware components and examples projects, and by the STM32CubeMX initialisation-code generator and configurator, which has a power consumption calculator.

ST reports EEMBC benchmark scores of 409 CoreMark and 285 ULPMark-CP for performance and energy efficiency.

Samples are available immediately and full production is ramping up, says ST.

https://www.st.com

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Software accelerates AI deployment in audio, voice and sensing devices

Thu, Mar 12, 2020

Software for Cadence Tensilica HiFi digital signal processors (DSPs) has been optimised to execute TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers, part of the TensorFlow open-source platform for machine learning (ML) from Google. The edge-based ML running on the low power cores supports intelligence in audio, voice and sensing applications.

The HiFi DSPs are the first DSPs to support TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers, says Cadence. The software support for TensorFlow Lite on the HiFi DSP cores, promotes development of edge applications that use artificial intelligence (AI) and ML on TensorFlow and removes the need for hand-coding neural networks. This accelerates time to market, Cadence notes.

Implementing AI at the edge on devices that use voice and audio as a user interface, requires the inference model to be run on the device. This eliminates the latency associated with sending data to a cloud service and waiting for the response to be sent back to the device and also reduces power consumption associated with sending/receiving large amounts of data across a network.

It also serves to maintain privacy and minimise security issues since the data does not leave the device. As the device is not dependent on the cloud, it can be disconnected from the network and still operate.

A 600MHz Tensilica HiFi 4 DSP is included in NXP Semiconductor’s i.MX RT600 and delivers 4.8 Giga multiply-accumulates per second (GMACS). It has the compute power required for deploying voice, audio and other neural network-based applications at the edge. Joe Yu, vice president of microcontrollers at NXP Semiconductors, said: “Supporting the popular, end-to-end toolchain, TensorFlow, as well as other inferencing technologies, on the HiFi DSP will enable ML developers to take advantage of the compelling combination of compute and memory on this chip”.

Yipeng Liu, director of audio/voice IP at Cadence, added: “Support for TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers enables our licensees to innovate with ML applications like keyword detection, audio scene detection, noise reduction and voice recognition, with the assurance that they can run in an extremely low-power footprint”.

http://www.cadence.com

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Wideband mmWave synthesiser is for 5G radio beamforming and MIMO

Thu, Mar 12, 2020

The integrated 8V97003 wideband mmWave synthesiser is has the industry’s highest performance and features optimised for 5G and broadband wireless applications, says Renesas Electronics.

The 8V97003 can be used as a local oscillator (LO) for mmWave and beamforming, or a precision reference clock for a high-speed data converter in test and measurement, optical networking and data acquisition applications.

According to Bobby Matinpour, vice president of Timing Products, IoT and Infrastructure business unit at Renesas: “[The] single-chip . . .  8V97003 is particularly well-suited for emerging applications above the 6GHz carrier frequency, including broadband wireless, microwave backhaul, and 5G radios”.

The 8V97003 is claimed to deliver the industry’s best combination of wide frequency range (171.875MHz to 18GHz), low output phase noise (-60.6dBc at 20kHz to 100MHz at 6GHz) and high output power over its entire frequency range. Engineers can use a single 8V97003 in place of multiple synthesiser modules to reduce footprint and cost of the end product. The high output power eliminates the need for external driver which reduces complexity and power consumption without compromising performances, says Renesas. The low output phase noise makes it suitable for 5G and other wireless applications where it is claimed to enable superior system level signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and error vector magnitude (EVM). As a reference clock for high-speed data converters, the 8V97003 maximises system performance by improving SNR and spurious-free-dynamic-range (SFDR).

Mass production quantities of the 8V97003 are available now in a 7.0 x 7.0mm, 48-lead VFQFPN package.

http://www.renesas.com

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