The digitalization of infrastructure is at the right time. GigaDevice and Xinchi Technology jointly promote the development of gas Internet of Things

With the rapid development of China's urbanization and the continuous advancement of the "coal-to-gas" project, a wave of new incremental demands have emerged in the gas meter industry. At the same time, the wave of digitalization and intelligence is coming, and the service life of traditional gas meters is generally 6-10 years, and there is a demand for periodic forced replacement. The superposition of these factors has promoted the continued expansion of the smart gas meter market. According to the analysis report of Qianzhan Industry Research Institute, the compound annual growth rate of the market size of China's smart gas meter industry from 2022 to 2027 is approximately 7.2%. It is expected that the market size of China's smart gas meter industry is expected to increase to 23 billion yuan in 2027.

Forecast of market prospects of China’s smart gas meter industry from 2022 to 2027 (unit: 100 million yuan)

Generally speaking, the development of China's gas meter industry has gone through multiple stages such as ordinary mechanical gas meters, membrane gas meters, IC card smart gas meters, wireless smart gas meters, and Internet of Things smart gas meters. The latest generation of IoT smart gas meters is based on the operator's IoT private network. It uses a dedicated mobile communication module for the IoT and installs smart modules such as remote electronic controllers on the gas meter to establish data remote transmission and control. A comprehensive management platform for gas metering instruments. In this way, IoT gas meters can support mobile APP inquiry and payment, real-time control and management, alarm functions and big data analysis functions, becoming the best solution for gas operating companies to achieve intelligent management, greatly improving management efficiency.

GigaDevice cooperates with Xinchi Technology to accelerate the implementation of gas Internet of Things

Faced with the huge application demand in this vertical market, GigaDevice has reached a cooperation with Chongqing Xinchi Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xinchi Technology"), a well-known provider of smart gas, smart water, and Internet of Things solutions in the industry. , based on the GD32L233 series low-power MCU to create a new IoT smart gas meter terminal solution, combined with Xinchi Technology’s advanced smart gas comprehensive management platform, to achieve digital and intelligent cloud-to-end management capabilities, and jointly promote the popularization of the gas IoT .

Through long-term development in the field of Internet of Things, GigaDevice has gradually accumulated experience in the smart meter industry and is committed to creating market-competitive smart gas meter solutions to help customers speed up product launches and seize market opportunities. At present, more than 1 million gas meter terminals based on the GD32L233 series low-power MCU have been shipped. The figure below is the reference design.

Ultrasonic/membrane/IoT gas meter solution based on GD32L233RX

Several major elements in designing an IoT gas meter solution

What does a good IoT gas meter solution require? GigaDevice Innovation put forward some thoughts.

First of all, the IoT gas meter must solve the problem of power consumption. Traditional gas meters need to replace batteries regularly, otherwise normal operation will be affected; this not only increases operation and maintenance costs, but also brings inconvenience to users. Therefore, IoT gas meters need to have low power consumption characteristics to extend battery life and reduce replacement frequency. GD32L233RX achieves high performance and low power consumption that meet gas meter applications by streamlining the powerful Armv8-M instruction set and fully optimized bus design. Its main frequency is as high as 64MHz, while the power consumption is only 90uA/MHz, while optimizing current efficiency. Excellent performance.

Secondly, the gas meter must solve the networking problem and have reliable data storage capabilities. The networking between the gas meter and the cloud platform is not only used for remote meter reading, billing, control and management, but also to support subsequent OTA upgrade functions to fix loopholes and add new functions in a timely manner. GD32L233RX provides multiple ISO7816 UART and LPUART interfaces, which can be flexibly matched with different IoT communication modules, and also supports different measurement sensing units such as ultrasonic or membrane type; this MCU supports up to 256KB FLASH and can store more users Data and system function codes. GD25 series NOR FLASH can provide excellent storage reliability to avoid data loss causing trouble to users. The ultra-high read and write endurance can also meet the use needs of gas meter terminals for up to 10 years.

In addition, gas meters also need to be equipped with response mechanisms for emergency situations such as earthquakes and fires, especially in earthquake-prone areas. GD32L233RX supports an external earthquake detection module. Once an earthquake is detected, the gas meter will automatically close the valve and turn on the buzzer alarm.

Based on the above thinking, the core advantages of GigaDevice’s innovative GD32L233RX solution are:

• The PA port of this MCU supports high current to directly drive the buzzer, eliminating the need for a drive circuit and helping to save costs;

• The standby power consumption of the whole machine is less than 18uA, which greatly reduces operation and maintenance costs;

• The number of interfaces is up to 59, which is higher than similar 64-pin products. Customers do not need to choose 80-pin products;

• GD32 MCU product series is rich, pin-compatible, code reusable, excellent inheritance, and subsequent program upgrades and replacements are very convenient;

• Customers can obtain schematic diagrams, PCB solutions, programs and other information provided by GigaDevice for free, which can be directly used in production to speed up product launch time;

• GigaDevice GD32 MCU ranks seventh in the global market share, and its strong production capacity support can fully meet customer needs.

  
  

GigaDevice will continue to deepen cooperation with Xinchi Technology to promote the technological improvement and market precipitation of smart gas meter solutions, and will further expand into smart meter applications such as water, electricity, and heat to jointly empower the digitalization and intelligent upgrade of infrastructure. transformation.

As we all know, each industry segment in the field of Internet of Things has its own independent market space. GigaDevice will actively integrate the upstream and downstream ecology of the industry chain and cover a wider range of application scenarios with the product portfolio of "MCU+FLASH+PMIC". For example, MCU has 44 series and more than 550 products, and FLASH has 27 major product series and 16 types of capacities. Choice, rich product selection can help activate the application potential of more IoT segmented industries.