FIELD APPLICATION ENGINEER
As the days go by, we can see more clearly that IoT is the most popular technology of the 21st century. Nowadays, it is possible to access and control almost every device from our mobile phones. IoT is now at our houses, workplaces, cars, fields... In short, at every moment of our lives. We owe this wide use to certain technologies. These are:
- Low budget and low energy consuming sensor technology
- Being able to offer solutions according to the application, with many different communication protocols. We can give examples for these types of communication such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and LORA.
- With the proliferation of cloud-based platforms, now everyone has a space at home where they can store their own data in the cloud system.
- Making decisions on the data obtained with artificial intelligence algorithms without human intervention.
Another important issue in IoT solutions is power management. Many IoT devices are mobile devices. Therefore, they need a battery system. So, battery is another source of weight for IoT devices.
Therefore, your IoT solutions should be light and the power consumption should be very limited. When it is not possible to go below a certain power consumption during communication, the IoT device should consume the lowest possible power when it is not communicating. This can be achieved by ensuring that the processors controlling the communication modules draw current at “uA level” when not performing any operation with power consumption and sleep modes, ensuring that the device can operate for the longest possible time with a battery. One of the main risks of IoT being in every aspect of our life is information security. Controlling each device from the phone, or processing data on a device and sending it to the cloud system, or protecting data in systems that work with fingerprints, are among the most important aspects to consider. For this purpose, different companies offer software-based measures against possible data theft attacks. The ARM platform, which is the processor architecture related to this, announced the Armv8-M architecture on April 30, 2013. Processors with this architecture were also launched with ARM Cortex M23 and ARM Cortex M33 names.
The Arm Cortex M23 and ARM Cortex M33 architectures offer some features that were not previously available on the market. The most important of these is a processor family called “TrustZone”, in which there are 2 different zones as a “hardware-safe” zone and an “insecure” zone. Thanks to this feature, you can reduce data theft risk to zero by storing your personal data or the data that you do not want to share with third parties, especially those in your IoT applications, in this secure zone.
Why Nuvoton?
Nuvoton is a Taiwan based manufacturer of micro-processors. Ozdisan Elektronik, with its more than 500 product ranges, distributes Nuvoton products as well since 2018. As Ozdisan’s R&D and field application team, we not only recommend the suitable products to our customers but also provide hardware and software support from the beginning to the end of the project, including the installation of the product’s development platform, sharing of the project’s sample codes, and offering technical support whenever they need it. Nuvoton, which offers products with several processor families, has product groups starting from the 8051 family to the Arm M0, M23 and M4 families. Nuvoton has no disadvantages compared to its closest competitors, and supports your projects with its price and technical support advantages. Also, the Arm9-based microprocessor family can support you in your HMI projects. Standing out in the market with its audio integration circuits, Nuvoton can support you in every field you need with its integrated circuits that have both audio integration circuits and micro-controllers.
“IoT is the most popular technology of the 21st century.”
Nuvoton Is Always One Step Ahead
Ozdisan Elektronik offers many IoT solutions with several brands. Among them is Nuvoton, which offers a development kit to its users on the first Armv8-M platform. Nuvoton has released 3 different ARM Cortex M23 based processor series on this platform. In addition to M25X family, which we have discussed in our previous articles, there are the M26X series and the M2351 series. In this article, we will discuss the M26X series.
The Flagship of the M23 Family: M26X Series
In addition to the Trustzone feature of the M261 series, there is a power consumption mode for each scenario. The applications used in mobile devices offer several sleep modes to use. As with the low power modes, the operating delay of exiting from this mode due to an interruption has also been minimized. The power consumption is as low as 2.8 uA when the Standby Power-Down Mode is activated. Also, when the Deep Power-Down Mode is activated, the power consumption is less than 2uA. This makes a huge contribution to battery management with low power consumption even when it is actively working, such as 97 uA/MHz when LDO mode is active and 45 uA/Mhz when DC-DC mode is active.
General Features of M263KIAAE
After you decide on a processor, you need to buy a development kit to try it out and connect the type of communication you will use to that development kit as a separate module. Also, it takes extra time, money and labor to combine all these in an integrated way. However, instead of doing all these, Nuvoton has provided us with an external PCIe connector with 3 integrated modules (LORA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth). (There is also a SIM card slot under the card.) With the 5V 2A adapter included in the box, all modules meet the power requirements required for testing at the same time.
General Properties
- It has an M263KIAAE processor
- Built-in Wi-Fi, LORA, Bluetooth module and antenna required for LORA
- Built-in BME680 heat and humidity sensor
- Built-in BMX055 9 axis sensor
- CAN and RS485 Transceiver
- MicroSD card slot
- Connectors required for connecting circuit boards produced for Arduino Uno
- Connector for USB OTG
- Nu-Link2-me circuit that makes it possible to add codes to the card
- Switches for turning the communication modules on and off
“There are 3 integrated modules (LORA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth) and an external PCI e connector offered by Nuvoton.”
Everything You Need Is Combined in One Card
Thanks to this card offered by Nuvoton, you can try all your IoT applications and adapt it to your own product by trying to transfer sensor data to the external environment with communication modules with internal sensors. Also, you can discover the TrustZone feature of the M23 family, and store the data you want to isolate from the external environment in the secure zone, thus operating your product securely against attacks that may come from the outside. In addition to Nuvoton, Ozdisan Elektronik can also provide support for Raytac, Gosuncn, Hoperf and Nordic products on the card, and at the end of your R&D works on the trial card, it can produce a complete solution for both the processor and the communication section.
Nuvoton Continues To Grow
As you can see in the above figure, Nuvoton’s share in the market is growing as its awareness increases daily. With the acquisition of the IC group by Panasonic in 2019, Nuvoton’s rank on this chart will increase to much higher levels.
“Ozdisan Elektronik is able to produce a complete solution in both the processor and communication parts at the end of your R&D operations on the trial card.”
