This is the WiFi microcontroller that the Industrial Internet of Things needs

Latest update time：2020-10-15

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As Microchip sees it, as the Internet of Things expands from home automation to home control areas such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), garage doors and electric fans, and accelerates its application in building and industrial automation, the market demand for highly integrated, reliable and secure Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) connectivity has increased unprecedentedly, which has given rise to the demand for WiFi microcontrollers.

However, Alex Li, product line manager of Microchip's wireless solutions division, pointed out in a recent press conference that the WiFi microcontroller solutions currently used in the above applications are limited in functionality, so an additional main microcontroller is required to work with it in almost any location. To achieve such a design, the two need to be connected via an interface protocol such as SPI or UART. However, such a design will bring several challenges to developers:

First, the connection between the Wi-Fi module and the main microcontroller limits the speed of Wi-Fi;

Secondly, from a business perspective, such a dual-component structure will increase some complexity and risks in the design and production process. Customers may have to spend more time on driver development and even need to learn different software development tools. Furthermore, supply from different manufacturers may also lead to some production delays or some supply chain risks, because you cannot guarantee that every manufacturer can supply you in a timely manner.

Third, technical support for systems and applications is also a problem. You can’t ask a technical support engineer or a pre-sales person from a manufacturer to help you figure out how to connect another product. All of these will delay the launch of your product and lead to unnecessary capital investment .

Fourth, there is the challenge of network security. As shown in the main MCU on the right of the above figure, many security keys and identity authentication related to Internet connection are stored in its flash memory, which will bring great security vulnerabilities.

To solve the above problems, Microchip has specially launched the first Trust&Go Wi-Fi® 32-bit MCU module WFI32E01PC. From Alex's introduction, we know that this single chip has a high-performance 32-bit MCU called PIC32MZ-W1, which has 1 megabyte of flash memory and 256KB of RAM, which can handle many complex IoT applications.

In addition, Microchip's product has a wealth of peripherals, which also enables it to have sufficient capabilities to cope with the application requirements of various IIOT scenarios. In addition to traditional peripherals such as SPI, UARD or ADC, Microchip also provides customers with special interfaces such as Ethernet structure, USB, CVD Touch and CAN bus. At the same time, WFI32E01PC also has excellent analog performance, such as precise and highly linear dual-channel 12-bit ADC, which means that even under different interferences and different temperature changes, the product still has relatively stable performance.

"Such an ADC characteristic is crucial in designing industrial sensors and some other industrial applications," emphasized Alex Li.

In addition, as a chip for the Internet of Things, data security is also a key issue that Microchip needs to consider for this WiFi microcontroller module. They solve this problem by integrating the Trust&Go platform internally. It is understood that this platform uses secure element technology to pre-configure and set up cloud authentication, simplifying the process of network authentication.

Alex Li pointed out that Trust&Go is designed to solve the security problem of devices connecting to local WiFi and then connecting to the cloud. According to him, in this process, an enhanced TLS connection with an encrypted key pair is required. This connection is a very complex process that requires three elements: the first is an unchangeable public key, and the second is a hidden private key. No external software can see this key. This is absolutely confidential and must prevent some physical attacks. The third is a uniquely verifiable and trusted device identifier, which you can understand as a fingerprint of an IoT device or some unique device identifier of a peripheral device.

In addition to the high-performance hardware described above, Microchip also provides software functions covering development, security, functionality and reliability for this WiFi MCU with its MPLAB Harmony development environment.

First of all, in terms of development, according to Alex Li, this development platform can provide customers with a code-free Wi-Fi LAN development framework, so that some customers who do not understand the application and settings of WiFi code can set up their WiFi connection by filling in some simple parameters and making some simple options in their development environment; at the same time, Microchip will also provide customers with a wealth of system-level teaching applications, so that customers can turn them into their own applications with very small changes; in addition, the SDK of this software will also provide customers with some drivers required by all MCUs to help customers use the functions of various MCUs. Thanks to such settings, developers can quickly design the reason and integrate it seamlessly.

Secondly, in terms of functions, as shown in the figure above, Microchip's software library provides customers with advanced Wi-Fi functions and various types of network protocol stacks for wireless LANs. At the same time, it will also provide sample software for cloud connections to meet design requirements in different scenarios.

In terms of security and reliability, in addition to the Trust&Go mentioned above, Microchip has also introduced WPA3 connection support and connection hardware encryption accelerator TLS for the software of this product, which improves the stability of authentication and prevents some offline dictionary attacks.

With excellent Wi-Fi interoperability testing, Microchip can ensure that its Wi-Fi products can be easily connected to any router. "Microchip has tested with 53 popular routers on the market and covers a very wide range of Wi-Fi access point chips, aiming to help overcome this problem," Alex Li emphasized. "At the same time, our Wi-Fi software has passed the WFA certification provided by the Wi-Fi Alliance, which means that if customers want to use their Wi-Fi logo, they need to pass the WFA certification , " Alex Li added.

Microchip also provides customers with professional debugging tools such as ICD3, ICD4 and SNAP. For RF products, they will also provide testing tools to ensure that their designed products meet specifications.

"Microchip will soon offer a development board that customers can use to quickly build prototypes," said Alex Li.

From the above introduction, we can see that this is a WiFi microcontroller module, not a more integrated WiFi SoC. So at the press conference, a reporter asked why the company made such a design choice? In response to this question, Alex Li gave the answer that their module has passed the complete RF certification, which makes it more convenient for customers to use. But he also emphasized that Microchip has plans to launch designs for SoC in the future.

As a comprehensive system solution provider, Microchip offers a wide range of products that can simplify IoT and IIoT systems by pairing the WFI32E01PC module with other Microchip's leading devices. These leading devices include the KSZ8081 Ethernet PHY series, the MCP2542WFD CAN transceiver series, sensors and wireless technologies including Bluetooth® Low Energy (BLE), Long Range (LoRa) and IEEE® 802.15.4. Microchip's system solution approach provides ready-to-use software drivers and hardware reference designs, which can significantly reduce project risks and shorten product time to market.

“With our module, customers no longer need a dual-component design structure, and do not need to learn multiple software SDKs. They only need to learn our SDK. In addition, customers do not need to deal with multiple suppliers. Microchip can provide customers with one-stop service from design to production,” Alex Li concluded.

*Disclaimer: This article is originally written by the author. The content of the article is the author's personal opinion. Semiconductor Industry Observer reprints it only to convey a different point of view. It does not mean that Semiconductor Industry Observer agrees or supports this point of view. If you have any objections, please contact Semiconductor Industry Observer.

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