Panasonic is now offering PAN-MaX, a multi-tier Matter Certificate Service designed for device manufacturers selling in the smart home market, to simplify Matter enablement for smart home devices.
The Matter standard from the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) is a major industry-led effort to address the highly fragmented market of connected smart homes. It aims to solve the challenge of interoperability, which is considered the biggest impediment for device manufacturers selling to a multi-vendor smart home customer. Matter establishes interoperability on top of familiar standard wireless communication technologies like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy, and Thread, allowing devices from different vendors to interact and understand each other using a common language. Additionally, the notion of IoT device security comes pre-baked into the standard itself, fundamentally addressing the problem of unauthentic fake product copies that currently plagues the industry. This is why big and small players alike in the smart home industry see the Matter technology as the bedrock for the consolidation of the smart home market.
In the above context, Panasonic Industry offers Matter enablement through its portfolio of wireless modules to provide the necessary wireless interfaces (BLE, Thread, and Wi-Fi) mandated by the Matter standard on PCB, as well as PAN-MaX, a digital trust solution for Matter products aimed at simplifying the production-related challenges faced by smart home device manufacturers.
PAN-MaX closes the loop for device manufacturers by providing all the necessary capabilities required for making a Matter product. Device manufacturers can achieve hassle-free Matter deployment with manufacturer-specific versions of Panasonic wireless modules. In doing so, Panasonic takes charge of implementing the digital trust solution, injecting Device Attestation Certificates (DACs) issued from a Panasonic managed PKI infrastructure into compatible Panasonic wireless modules, which are signed against a root certificate issued to a CSA-approved Product Attestation Authority. Device manufacturers can further leverage Panasonic’s European production facilities by pre-programming business logic and other customer/product-specific information during wireless module production in Panasonic’s factory.
Acknowledging that one size doesn’t fit all, the PAN-MaX service can be tailored to suit individual customer and project requirements. Available with different service level tiers: Silver, Gold, or Diamond, device manufacturers can choose from multiple price points, underlining Panasonic’s effort to promote Matter and make it accessible to customers of all project types and volumes. Panasonic simplifies an otherwise complicated multi-vendor setup, such that device manufacturers or their EMS partners don’t have to plan for additional production-related investments for a Matter project, and avoid all risks of escalating hidden costs.
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Mouser now stocking ST biosensor for smart devices and wearables
The ST1VAFE6AX provides design engineers with next generation biopotential signal detection and motion tracking for a variety of applications, including heart rate, pulse monitoring, electrocardiogram (ECG) and activity tracking for wearables and portable medical devices.
The ST1VAFE6AX features a vertical analogue front end (vAFE) channel to detect biopotential signals and includes a 6-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU) for motion tracking. This biosensor embeds advanced dedicated features and data processing for motion processing like the finite state machine (FSM), sensor fusion low power (SFLP), adaptive self-configuration (ASC), and machine learning core (MLC) with exportable artificial intelligence (AI) features and filters. The device fully synchronises biopotential and motion sensing for context-aware analysis. The ST1VAFE6AX biosensor’s compact 2.5 × 3.0 × 0.71 mm footprint makes it ideal for space-constrained applications. Application development with ST1VAFE6AX biosensor is supported by the STEVAL-MKI242A adapter board.
The STEVAL-MKI242A adapter can also be used with the STMicroelectronics STEVAL-MKI109V3 motherboard, the STEVAL-MKBOXPRO programmable wireless box kit, or the X-NUCLEO-IKS4A1 motion MEMS and environmental sensor expansion board.
Rohm introduces industry’s first analog-digital fusion control power supply solution
Rohm has announced the LogiCoA, a power supply solution for small to medium power industrial and consumer equipment (30W to 1kW class). It provides the same functionality as fully digital control power supplies at low power consumption and cost equivalent to analog power types.
Analog controlled power supplies are commonly used in industrial robotics and semiconductor manufacturing equipment that operate in the medium power range. However, in recent years these power supplies are also required to provide a high level of reliability and precise control that make it difficult to meet market demands with analog-only configurations. On the other hand, while fully digitally controlled power supplies enable fine control and settings, they are not widely adopted in the small to medium power range due to the high power consumption and cost of the digital controller. To address this issue, Rohm developed the LogiCoA power solution that leverages the strengths of both analog and digital technologies. High performance low power LogiCoA MCUs are utilised to facilitate control of a variety of power supply topologies.
The LogiCoA brand embodies a design philosophy of fusing digital elements to maximize the performance of analog circuits. Rohm’s LogiCoA power solution is the industry’s first* “analog-digital fusion control” power supply that combines a digital control block centred around the LogiCoA MCU with analog circuitry comprised of silicon MOSFETs and other power devices.
In a fully digital control power supply, the functions handled by digital controllers such as high-speed CPUs or DSPs can be processed by low-bit MCUs, making it possible to achieve increased functionality that is difficult to realize with an analog control power supply at low power consumption and cost. This solution allows for the correction of performance variations in peripheral components according to the power supply circuit by storing various settings such as current and voltage values in the LogiCoA MCU. As a result, there is no need to consider design margins unlike with analog control power supplies, contributing to smaller power supplies that provide greater reliability. On top, as operation log data can be recorded in the MCU’s nonvolatile memory, it is ideal for power supplies in industrial equipment that require logging as a backup in case of malfunction.
The evaluation reference design REF66009 allows users to experience the LogiCoA power supply solution in a non-isolated buck converter circuit. Various tools necessary for evaluation are also offered, including circuit diagrams, PCB layouts, parts lists, sample software, and support documents, while actual device evaluation is possible using the optional LogiCoA001-EVK-001 evaluation board.
Microchip expands portfolio to include multi-core 64-Bit microprocessors
Microchip is expanding its computing range to meet the rising demands of today’s embedded designs. Making Microchip a single-vendor solution provider for MPUs, the PIC64 family will be designed to support a broad range of markets that require both real-time and application class processing. PIC64GX MPUs, the first of the new product line to be released, enable intelligent edge designs for the industrial, automotive, communications, IoT, aerospace and defence segments.
The intelligent edge often requires 64-bit heterogenous compute solutions with asymmetric processing to run Linux, real-time operating systems and bare metal in a single processor cluster with secure boot capabilities. Microchip’s PIC64GX family manages mid-range intelligent edge compute requirements using a 64-bit RISC-V quad-core processor with Asymmetric Multiprocessing (AMP) and deterministic latencies. The PIC64GX MPU is the first RISC-V multi-core solution that is AMP capable for mixed-criticality systems. It is designed with a quad-core, Linux-capable Central Processing Unit (CPU) cluster, fifth microcontroller class monitor and 2 MB flexible L2 Cache running at 625 MHz.
The PIC64GX family boasts pin-compatibility with Microchip’s PolarFire SoC FPGA devices, offering a large amount of flexibility in the development of embedded solutions. Additionally, the 64-bit portfolio will leverage Microchip’s ecosystem of tools and supporting software, including a host of powerful processes to help configure, develop, debug and qualify embedded designs.
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