Digi-Key at Embedded World 2022 with STMicroelectronics

22nd June 2022

Kiera Sowery

0 0

At Embedded World 2022, on the Digi-key booth, Paige West speaks with Marcus Woxulv, Technical Marketing Manager - Microcontrollers, North Europe, STMicroelectronics about enabling rapid time-to-market IoT applications.

Woxulv explained that the IoT Discover Kit can benefit developers of IoT devices as it has a WiFi and Bluetooth interface supported by an MX chip module, various USB connectors, and room for additonal expansion. The board also contains some IoT equipped sensors and additional memories. Also, from an IoT perspective, it comes well equipped with software.

The microcontroller in the kit comes with new improvements to security, mainly based on Cortex-M33. It also comes supported with ST's firmware library for secure firmware upgrade, a reference library to support engineers going forward. ST has also further improved the features of the crypto accelerators, making them side channel resistant.

The kit has key assets that enable prototyping for a variety of wearable and sensor applications. The STM32U5 is the launch platform for ST's newest updated features, the low power background acquisition mode. It can feed data while the microcontrollor is not running, saving power without sacrificing any form of responsiveness. It also allows the engineer to cut back on power consumption of internal memory.

Going forward, capabilities will be focused on the two leading challenges: security and lower power perspectives. The industry is facing more issues with security, and applications are more prone to be attacked when put out in the field on the physical form and also remote side. STMicroelectronics is attempting to mitigate the different threats it receives through either the hardware itself, or the software offered for its microchips.

Support for smart homes & cities

The board is tuned for a smart home perspective with the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth interface so it's easy to realise in-house smart sensors with the integrated sensors on the board.

From a smart city perspective, STMicroelectronics offers a plethora of solutions for low-power WAN setups. This board specifically doesn't support this, but can be extended to support such a setup. From a smart city perspective the infrastructure can be addressed.

The board can also be expanded to support ethernet communcation with external parts, providing a good platform for smart city implementations.