Are you ready for a smart kitchen?

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Here are 5 reasons why the smart kitchen will be a $10 billion opportunity. 

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Who remembers the Disney Channel hit Smart House? For those who may not recall, the 1999 flick centered around a family who won a computerized house that ends up taking on a life of its own. While some of the features may have been a bit far-fetched, Disney certainly helped paint a clear picture of the kitchen of tomorrow — one in which can learn its owners’ eating habits through atmospheric sensors and whip up beverages and other snacks instantaneously.

Now 15 years later, a Smart House-like future is coming to fruition. As the ever-evolving Internet of Things continues to experience widespread adoption, one of the areas in the smart home that is expected to see the greatest change over the next decade is, indeed, the kitchen. According to a recent report from NextMarket Insights, the result of this burgeoning technology will make way for a $10.1 billion smart kitchen market by 2020. Running out of milk, eggs or cold cuts? Replenish your stock with just a press of a button. The study, which was conducted back in October, found that out of all connected kitchen appliances, many consumers favor refrigerators that’ll allow them to monitor food inventory with their smartphone.

“Whether it’s food storage, preparation, or the act of cooking itself, the arrival of new technologies will enable consumers to become more efficient, knowledgable and possibly even better cooks in coming years,” explained Michael Wolf, NextMarket Insights Chief Analyst. “As a result, we believe that appliance makers, smart home companies as well as those who provide food to consumers will see both enormous opportunity as well as disruption to their existing businesses with the arrival of the smart kitchen.”

Surveying over 500 households, the study revealed that the next-gen technologies are already beginning to alter the way consumers interact, prepare and consume their food. Nearly one-quarter (24%) who were self-proclaimed cooks already use a tablet or smartphone “all the time” when in the kitchen to help them prep meals, while another 34% indicated they use a tablet or smartphone “sometimes.”

“Appliance and device makers are integrating smart features at both the high and low end of the device spectrum,” Wolf adds.

It wasn’t simply the notion of smart fridges that accelerated consumers’ appetites for the IoT era. Other notable devices in the connected kitchen that most appealed to them included smart coffee makers, oven ranges and crock pots.

Writing for Forbes, Wolf recently highlighted a handful of reasons as to why the smart kitchen will, in fact, be a $10 billion opportunity:

1. The technology is already there: Nearly a quarter of cooks already use a mobile device to help in the kitchen.

2. They will reduce waste: With smart kitchen tech, not only can you see what’s in your fridge while mobile, some are beginning to tell us about is about to expire.

3. Technology can make us better cooks: As everything from ovens to thermometers get connected, users will be able to easily tap into cooking guide apps and datasets.

4. They will make us all healthier: Future devices will enable us to closely monitor and synchronize food consumption with our health and fitness routines, as well as help those with very specific dietary restrictions monitor what’s really in our food.

5. They will make us safer: Compliance organizations are already working closely with manufacturers to enable smart connectivity to allow for remote shut off of appliances like stoves and ranges.

So, how close are we to a Jetsons-like world? If it’s up to companies like Whirlpool, GE, LG and Belkin, soon… very soon. While Whirlpool says some of the concepts may only be five years out from ubiquity, others like LG have already started to make the smart kitchen a reality. Take their latest connected fridge for instance, which uses its companion HomeChat app to communicate with an owner’s mobile device to let them know what items are needed while at the grocery store. Using its built-in camera positioned at the top of the main compartment, users can now easily monitor exactly what’s inside their fridge right from their smartphone. Or, GE, who has not only launched a wireless induction cooktop but is retrofitting older appliances with Wi-Fo modules. Another example, Mr. Coffee. Belkin and Jarden joined forces to debut their latest automatic, web-enabled coffee maker. Based on WeMo technology, the 10-cup Mr. Coffee Smart Optimal Brew can be remotely controlled right from bed via from any Android or iOS device.

Intrigued? Here’s a look at just some of the latest once-ordinary kitchen “things” given new “powers.”

IAR Systems updates development tools for ARM Cortex-M7 devices

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IAR Systems shortens build times in leading development toolchain for ARM-based devices.

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Version 7.40 of the incredibly-popular IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM has introduced support for ARM Cortex-M7 microcontrollers from Atmel. Beyond that, the tools now feature parallel build for shorter build times, as well as an integration of IAR Systems’ new tool C-STAT for powerful static code analysis.

As you know, the ARM Cortex-M7 processor is the most recent addition to the ARM Cortex-M family. Not only focused on energy efficiency and high-performance, the MCUs are intended for use in a wide-range of applications including automotive, industrial automation, medical devices, and of course, the burgeoning Internet of Things.

The new version of IAR Embedded Workbench adds support for ARM Cortex-M7 devices from Atmel, including support for the double precision floating point unit. This covers the recently-revealed Atmel | SMART SAM E70, SAM S70 and SAM V70. In addition to these MCUs, support for a number of ARM Cortex-based devices from several other vendors have also been added.

In order to speed up build times, version 7.40 introduces parallel build. Users can easily set the compiler to run in several parallel processes and make better use of the available processor cores in the PC. This feature can have a major impact on reducing the build times of the compiler.

The add-on product C-STAT for powerful, integrated static code analysis is now available. Static analysis finds potential issues in code on the source code level and can be used to prevent errors such as memory leaks, access violations, arithmetic errors and array and string overruns. The analysis performed by C-STAT improves code quality and aids alignment with industry coding standards. It checks compliance with rules as defined by MISRA C:2004, MISRA C++:2008 and MISRA C:2012, as well as hundreds of rules based on CWE (the Common Weakness Enumeration) and CERT C/C++, for example. Users can easily select the rule set or individual rules to check their code against, and the analysis results are provided directly in the IAR Embedded Workbench IDE.

Interested? Head over to IAR Systems’ official page to learn more. Also, as of late last year, over 1,400 new example projects could be found in IAR Embedded Workbench, which supports Atmel’s entire portfolio of MCUs and MPUs.

Henri wants to help designers create ambient UIs for smart devices

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This interactive gizmo is making it easier for designers to explore the ambient UIs of tomorrow’s gadgets. 

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Smart devices will undoubtedly continue to proliferate over the coming years. With billions of these connected gizmos expected to hit the market and ultimately make their way into our homes, this leaves one important question: How do you communicate with an Internet-enabled appliance when it doesn’t have a screen? Think about it: Your toothbrush. Your robotic vacuum. Your cooking utensils. Typically speaking, these sort of items emit luminescent cues that are used to catch your attention only when in need of a battery charge or some sort of malfunction. That’s exactly the conundrum design firm Method has set out to solve with what they’re calling Henri.

“[At the moment], there isn’t an easy way to design that. You need someone with fairly strong programming skills,” Daniel Nacamuli, Method’s lead interaction designer explains.

Instead, Henri is an interactive gadget that wants to make it easier for designers to explore the ambient user interfaces of IoT devices. The device has been developed to function as an abstract stand-in for a connected home product such your smart lights, thermostats or locks. Housed in a wooden enclosure, the system is comprised of a central box, two control panels and a desktop user interface. The main console is packed with an Atmel based Arduino, a round set of LED lights, and a built-in speaker.

Two control panels of steel knobs are linked to Henri, enabling users (even without any sort of coding background) to easily experiment with enchanted interface elements. With just a few turn of its dials, designers can devise a wide-range of patterns of lights and sounds with varying pulses, hues, intensities and durations (zero to 16 seconds), as well as watch them play back in real-time on its central hub.

The Arduino is tasked with recording the sequence and relaying it back to the desktop interface for storage. The main box also syncs with synthesizers so users can simultaneously create sound cues. Later, Henri can reprogram all of this into the final piece of hardware.

Additionally, Henri will certainly come in handy for designers across a plethora of industries like gaming. “You could use the controller to fine tune animation on a screen. Say your animation is of the sun setting and that sun is going to move down. Normally they’ll use some animation software with a timeline. What could feel more natural, is to turn the dial on the Henri, to turn the speed,” Nacamuli tells Wired. 

This interactive device is merely one component of Method’s overall efforts to raise awareness around the design of ambient user interfaces for the Internet of Things. The firm unveiled the Henri box as part of a workshop earlier this year in its Bay Area office during San Francisco’s IxDA conference. There, attendees were paired in teams and asked to program light and sound patterns on the Henri to communicate test scenarios.

“After initial brainstorming, it was clear we could use this opportunity to solve a set of problems and roadblocks that have inhibited us from designing non-screen based products in our own practice,” the team writes. “Henri allows those concepts to be tested real-time, and enhance the overall capabilities of both the designer and the product. It helped people literally think outside of the box, and be productive while playing.”

Intrigued? Head over to the project’s case study here.

Pleurobot is a lifelike robotic salamander

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This bio-inspired robot may be the future of search-and-rescue missions.

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Bio-inspired robotic locomotion is a fairly new sub-category of bio-inspired design, revolving around learning concepts from nature and applying them to the design of real world engineered systems. More specifically, this field is about making robots that are inspired by biological systems. When it comes to these bio-mimicking bots, it seems as though we’ve seen just about everything, ranging from bats to spiders to dogs. And while it may not be all that difficult to make a bot that looks like an animal, having it behave like one is an entirely different story.

Meet Pleurobot. Recently developed by the BioRob at EPFL and NCCR Robotics, it is a salamander-inspired robot that is truly amphibious, meaning it is capable of walking, changing its gait to navigate uneven terrain, and even swimming. As the researchers note, the key to Pleurobot’s eerily-lifelike motion is its unique design, which was based on 3D X-ray movies of a real salamander walking, waddling and swimming. By tracking up to 64 points on the animal’s skeleton, the team was able to record movements of bones, and then deduce the number and position of active and passive joints needed for the robot to reproduce the 3D movements with reasonable accuracy.

According to its research proposal, the team first created a snake robot Kulko with tactile sensors in order to test the suggested control framework. This was comprised of a serial connection of 10 identical ball-shaped joint modules, along with a smooth surface to avoid getting stuck against obstacles. Each of the joint modules had 2-degrees of freedom (pitch and yaw), and had used servo motors as its actuators. On each side of every joint module, there were four force sensing resistors tasked with measuring contact forces — these were the only contact points between outer shell and inner structure.

“The current layout of the sensors can only measure horizontal forces which is enough for the application. The total force is estimated by summing forces measured by each FSR on the module. Each module also contains two Lithium-Ion batteries, angle sensors (magnetic rotary encoders), voltage regulation card, battery charger card and microcontroller card. The microcontroller card is based on the Atmel microcontroller AT90CAN128 and is continuously measuring position of the motors and controlling them with a PWM signal. Modules communicate with each other over CAN bus,” BioRob’s Tomislav Horvat writes.

By design, Pleurobot provides torque control for all the active joints, which enabled its creators to apply their neural network models of the spinal cord neural circuits of the salamander and to activate virtual muscles to replicate the recorded animal movements along with realistic viscoelastic properties. This was imperative when obtaining a fundamental understanding of vertebrate motor control.

What’s more, Pleurobot is also waterproof. While this feature actually proved to be the project’s most daunting assignment, the salamander-like project is currently using a water-repellant skin suit. Moving forward, the team hopes to improve upon this layer with aspirations that one day, the bio-mimicking robot will have a role in search-and-rescue efforts, with shallow waters for example. Its amphibious nature will enable it to go where humans cannot.

In the future, the team says it plans to use Pleurobot’s design methodology to bring early tetrapods to ‘life.’ So sure, we can write about it all day, but watching it in action is so much better! Those wishing to read up on the bio-mimicking project can download the team’s detailed proposal here, or head over to its official page for an abbreviated version.

VIPER is a cross-platform Python IoT design suite

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VIPER is a smart object development suite that brings cloud and IoT connectivity to your projects with just a click of the mouse.

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New York City-based startup ThingsOnInternet has launched a Kickstarter campaign for their new easy-to-use development suite for interactive Internet of Things (IoT) designs. As its name implies, VIPER — or “Viper Is Python Embedded in Real-time” — makes it possible for Makers and embedded designers to create their next connected project in Python for Arduino, UDOO and Spark, all in in real-time. And, unlike other solutions that already exist today, this collection of products is platform-agnostic and compatible with all sensors and kits.

The idea was first conceived after conducting some detailed market analysis, where the company discovered that designers, Makers and programmers all faced a similar set of challenges. In hopes of simplifying how “things” are brought onto the Internet, VIPER converged a series of components to better streamline the process. This included an IDE to manage and program the boards, a Virtual Machine to serve as its operating system, a plug-and-play TOI Shield, an extensive library of ready-to-use functions, and a mobile app to act as the interface for smart objects. On top of that, it’s also cloud-ready. With just a little coding, users can develop a wide-range of IoT applications, ranging from interactive storefronts, to home and industrial automation systems, to art and museum installations, to smart farming.

“Designers aim to create behaviors that can co-exist at the same time and they are often frustrated by ‘anomalous’ and unexpected results on their projects. Makers, who have higher competences, invest a lot of time in understanding how to code multithreaded behaviors, how to manage interrupts in C++, etc. and sometimes their code become really hard to be maintained. Programmers are frustrated by executing ‘boring’ tasks for their customers, one of them is related (again) to multithread, interrupts, callbacks, timers and exceptions,” ThingsOnInternet writes.

Since millions of developers already know Python, VIPER decided to make the programming language readily accessible for commercial interactive products as well, therefore amplifying the potential for smart objects to be as pervasive as mobile devices in their ease of design interactivity. To do this, VIPER provides a browser-based, minimal-installation development environment where users can write code with extensive library support and have it executed on any Arduino-like board. What’s great for designers is that, with VIPER, it leaves them able to focus on the features and functionality, not the tediousness, along with a mobile app to control their creation for free.

“Devices like Arduino, UDOO, ST Nucleo, Spark Core, Photon and the last released Spark Electron are microcontroller boards that revolutionized the world of amateur and semiprofessional electronics. They allowed hundreds of thousands of people around the world to give objects a new life by making them interactive, able to communicate and interact with humans,” the team explains. “Unfortunately, programming them is quite easy for engineers and computer scientists, while most of the users are able to exploit only part of the huge potential of such incredible boards. Here comes the idea of TOI to extend the world of smart and interactive object design to everyone. VIPER allows in a few clicks to convert a common lamp in a smart assistant that reminds us to take the umbrella, turn on the air conditioning while monitoring the house for intrusions.”

In order to use the suite, Makers and developers simply download a one-time package from the company’s website onto either their PC or USB stick. Beyond that, VIPER includes an embedded, portable Python 3.0 engine to help make everything as easy as can be. Users can then launch the VIPER IDE and begin making. All that’s left from there is connecting its accompanying mobile app to serve as the UI for the project.

VIPER runs on an Arduino Due (SAM3X8E), and can even be ported onto the recently-revealed Atmel | SMART Cortex-M7 family. As its creators reveal, code developed on an Arduino Due can also be implemented onto these new MCUs in a matter of two clicks. Furthermore, the suite features an Arduino and Spark Proton-compatible, plug-and-play TOI shield. Simply attach either a Due or Photon to the shield and start playing with any of the VIPER examples found in its library. (This collection of modules includes CC3000 Wi-Fi for Spark Core and Adafruit Shield, Adafruit/Sparkfun Thermal Printer, Adafruit NeoPixel LED, RTTTL smart melody player, Streams library, as well as TCP and UDP network protocols.) Aux ports are even included, enabling the use of other sensors like Grove, ThinkerKit, Phidgets, and Adafruit NeoPixel LED strips.

Through its IDE, users can ‘viperize’ theirs boards by installing them using the VIPER Virtual Machine. Once completed, a board is no longer a simple Arduino Due, Spark Photon or UDOO; instead, it has a multi-threaded, real-time operating system running on it, and a virtual machine ready to execute compiled Python 3 scripts. Ready to design your next smart project? You can head over to its official website, or check out the team’s recent successfully-funded Kickstarter campaign here.

Turning on a lamp via the Internet the Big Bang Theory way

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A team of Atmel Norway engineers decided to make their own rendition of the Big Bang Theory Internet-controlled lamp scene. (Yes, even Sheldon Cooper would approve of this one.) 

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How many of you are fans of the CBS hit sitcom series, Big Bang Theory? Well, you’re in luck. If you recall an episode from the show’s first season, entitled “The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization,” the team of Sheldon Cooper, Leonard Hofstadter, Howard Wolowitz and Raj Koothrappali successfully turned on a lamp via the Internet using an X-10 system.

To do so, the gang sent signals across the web and around the world from their apartment to connect not only their lights, but other electronics like their stereo and remote control cars as well.

“Gentlemen, I am now about to send a signal from this laptop through our local ISP racing down fiber optic cable at the of light to San Francisco bouncing off a satellite in geosynchronous orbit to Lisbon, Portugal, where the data packets will be handed off to submerged transatlantic cables terminating in Halifax, Nova Scotia and transferred across the continent via microwave relays back to our ISP and the external receiver attached to this…lamp,”  Wolowitz excitedly prefaced.

What’s funny is, the technology that the group of sitcom scientists was simulating could have just as well been done using a Wi-Fi network controller, like the WINC1500 module. However, at the time of airing back in March of 2008, open access for Internet users looking to control “things” around the house was seemingly something only engineers and super geeks thought possible.

In an effort to generate awareness around the upcoming IoT Secure Hello World training series, a team of Atmel Norway engineers decided to make their own rendition of the Big Bang Theory lamp scene using the ATWINC1500 IEEE 802.11b/g/n network controller and an Atmel | SMART SAM D21 Xplained Pro board, all secured by Atmel CryptoAuthentication devices.

After watching the Trondheim-based crew’s Cooper-Hofstadter IoT experiment above, be sure to check out a detailed description of the technology behind the project and learn more about the IoT Secure Hello World Tech on Tour seminar below.

Report: Internet of Things expected to quadruple in size by 2020

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Verizon reveals that while the IoT has expanded massively in the last couple of years, we’ve barely scratched the surface.

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The Internet of Things has certainly transcended beyond its state of infancy and is well on its way of gaining momentum, according to Verizon at least. In its latest findings, the carrier revealed that more than a billion devices are already connected and running business-to-business IoT operations.

In its “State of the Market” report, Verizon published that there were 1.2 billion various smart devices, and that the number is expected to rise to 5.4 billion by 2020 for an annual growth rate of 28%.

“It’s not hype. The Internet of Things is already having a massive impact on business. It offers organizations the opportunity to transform how they operate, and gives both new entrants and established players the ability to innovate and disrupt,” the company writes. “Adoption is growing rapidly, but IoT isn’t yet widespread. Whether you’re in the public sector or private; big or small — if you don’t have an IoT strategy, you should.”

Verizon experienced a 45% year-over-year revenue growth in its IoT business in 2014, with 4G LTE activations growing by 135%. Currently, the telecom manages more than 15 million IoT-enabled connections for a wide range of industries. To date, company experts estimate that just 10% of enterprises have deployed IoT technologies extensively, however research commissioned by Verizon from ABI Research forecasts massive growth ahead, with the number of business-to-business IoT connections more than quadrupling over the next five years.

Additionally, the global communications company also cites ABI Research in its revelations that organizations will introduce more than 13 million health and fitness tracking devices to the enterprise by 2018. In doing so, wearables can enhance wellness throughout the workplace, not to mention improve efficiency in hospitals and reduce the cost of healthcare.

Among those who use Verizon’s services, manufacturing has seen the biggest increase in machine-to-machine operations, with a 204% increase year-over-year. It’s followed by finance and insurance with a 128% increase, and media and entertainment, which has experience an uptick of 120%. Home monitoring and hospitality weren’t too far beyond with 89% and 88% jumps, respectively. Verizon data also shows an 83% YoY growth in IoT in the transportation and distribution sector as well.

In fact, Verizon’s telematics experts note that 14 car manufacturers account for 80% of the worldwide automotive market, and all of them have a connected car strategy. The report predicts that by 2025, at least five countries will have set a “zero road fatalities” target, relying on intelligent connected cars and smart road infrastructure to avoid and mitigate accidents.

Verizon analysts add that in 10 years, smart cities capabilities will become a critical consideration for companies deciding where to invest and open facilities, due to their impact on operating costs and talent availability. Recent data already shows a 46% YoY growth in the number of IoT connections in the public sector.

According to the report, IoT growth is being fueled by a mix of technological, political and social factors which are driving more organizations to adopt IoT-enabled solutions. For example, use of social media and mobile technology has transformed consumer and citizen expectations, while the declining cost of sensors, connectivity, and data processing power is making the ROI equations for IoT projects look even more appealing.

The carrier went on to highlight ever-growing security concerns for a constantly-connected world as well by noting, “In a mature IoT world, there will be millions of intelligent endpoints, such as cars, pacemakers, and aircon units, each equipped with dozens of active sensors and millions of lines of code. Many of these endpoints will be accessible, often physically, to hackers. The network connections that these endpoints use to communicate may also be vulnerable, giving access to central applications and databases.”

Interested in reading the Verizon report in its entirety? Download it here.

EMAC releases a SODIMM-based take on the Atmel | SMART SAMA5D3

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As its name implies, the ‘A5D36 is a SoM based on the Atmel | SMART ARM Cortex-A5 SAMA5D36.

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EMAC has launched the SoM-A5D36, a system-on-module that runs Linux on a Cortex-A5-based Atmel SAMA5D3 processor, and offers up to 4GB of Flash, industrial temperature, and an optional carrier board. The wide temperature, fanless ARM 536 MHz SoM features 10/100/1000 BaseT Ethernet along with up to six serial ports. Beyond that, the board boasts up to 16MB of serial data flash and up to 512MB of LP DDR2 RAM, as well as supports LCD and resistive touch interfaces.

This isn’t the first time the Atmel | SMART SAMA5D3 has experienced some love from computer-on-module (COM) vendors. In fact, the Cortex-A5-based SoC has shown up on the ShiraTech AT-501, the Acme Systems Acqua A5, and the MYIR MYC-SAMA5D3X — all of which except the Acqua A5 use SODIMM connectors.

Using the same small 200-pin SODIMM form factor utilized by other EMAC SoM modules, the SoM-A5D36 packs all the core ARM processor functionality, including Flash, memory, serial ports, Ethernet, I2S audio, PWMs, timer/counters, A/D, digital I/O lines, clock/calendar, and more. The SoM-A5D36 is also designed to plug into a carrier board that contains all the connectors and any custom I/O required for an application. This approach enables a user to design a custom carrier board that meets for I/O, dimensional and connector requirements without having to worry about the processor, memory and standard I/O functionality.

Key specs of the SoM-A5D36 include:

• Processor: Atmel | SMART SAMA5D36
• Memory:
  • Up to 512MB LP DDR2 SDRAM
  • 16MB serial data flash
  • Up to 4MB eMMC flash
• Networking: Gigabit Ethernet PHY; optional 2x GbE
• Primary I/O:
  • 3x USB 2.0 host (1x includes device support)
  • 6x serial (4x defined) — 1x full, 3x RTS/CTS, 2x no handshake
  • 2x I2C
  • 2x CAN
  • I2S audio
  • 2x SD
  • 22x GPIO
• Secondary I/O:
  • 24-bit LCD controller
  • 12-bit, 4-wire, analog resistive touch controller
  • 2x CAN
  • 2x SPI (“3 SPI CS”)
  • 2x I2C
  • 4x PWM
  • 6x ADC (12-bit)
  • 5x timer/counters, 3x prog. clock, RTC, reset, LEDs
  • External address data bus
• Operating temperature: -40 to 85°C
• Power: +3.3V
• Dimensions: 67 x 60mm (200-pin SODIMM)
• Operating system: EMAC OE Linux

Interested in learning more? Head over to EMAC’s official page here.

Atmel’s new car MCU tips imminent SoC journey

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The fact that these MCUs are targeting highly-sophisticated connected car applications like infotainment and ADAS means that the journey toward bigger and more powerful chips is now inevitable.

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The automotive industry has reached a new era marked by giant initiatives like infotainment, connected car and semi-autonomous vehicles. And, no one seems more excited than the MCU guys who have been a part and parcel of in-car electronics for the past two decades. However, the humble microcontroller is going through a profound makeover in itself in order to come to terms with the demands of the connected car environment.

Take Atmel Corporation, one of the top MCU suppliers, who has launched its SAM DA1 family of microcontrollers at Embedded World 2015 in Nuremberg, Germany. The automotive-grade ARM Cortex-M0+-based MCUs come with capacitive touch hardware support for human-machine interface (HMI) and local interconnect network (LIN) applications. The SAM DA1 series integrates peripheral touch controller (PTC) for capacitive touch and eliminates the need for external components while minimizing CPU overhead. The feature is aimed at capacitive touch button, slider, wheel and proximity sensing applications.

Moreover, SAM DA1 microcontrollers offer up to 64KB of Flash, 8KB of SRAM and 2KB read-while-write Flash. The other key features of SAM DA1 series include 45 DMIPS and up to six serial communication interface (SERCOM), USB and I²S ports. SERCOM is configurable to operate as I²C, SPI or USART, which gives developers flexibility to mix serial interfaces and have greater freedom in PCB layout.

Atmel | SMART SAM DA1 ARM based Cortex-M0+ microcontrollers

The automotive-grade MCUs — operating at a maximum frequency of 48MHz and reaching a 2.14 Coremark/MHz — are qualified to the AEC Q-100 Grade 2 (-40 to +105degreeC). According to Matthias Kaestner, VP of Automotive at Atmel, the company is targeting the SAM DA1 chips for in-vehicle networking, infotainment connectivity and body electronics.

Automotive touch surface demo at Embedded World 2015

The fact that the SAM DA1 devices are based on powerful ARM cores clearly shows a trend toward more performance and the ability to run more tasks on the same MCU. The Cortex-M0+ processor design comes with a two-stage pipeline that improves the performance while maintaining maximum frequency. Moreover, it supports a new I/O interface that allows single cycle accesses and enables faster I/O port operations.

That’s no surprise because the number of electronic control units (ECUs) is on the rise amid growing momentum for connected car features like advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). However, a higher number of ECUs will make the communication among them more intense; so automotive OEMs want to reduce the number of ECUs while they want more value from the MCU.

Moreover, car vendors want to bring down the number of ECUs to avoid complexity within the larger car network. The outcome of this urge is the integration of more performance and functionality onto the MCU. Each ECU has at least one microcontroller.

Atmel and the Evolution of MCU

Atmel’s SAM DA1 device is another testament that the boundaries between MCU and SoC platforms are blurring. The fact that these MCUs are targeting highly sophisticated connected car applications like infotainment and ADAS means that the journey toward bigger and more powerful chips is now inevitable.

Atmel is an MCU company, and this product line has played a crucial role in its transformation that started in the late 2000s. At the same time, however, the San Jose, California–based chipmaker seems fully aware of the critical importance of the system-level solutions. Atmel calls the SAM DA1 family of chips MCUs; however, its support for more peripherals, larger memories and intelligent CPU features show just how much the MCU has changed over the course of a decade.

Memory Protection Unit in Cortex-M0+

Atmel has a major presence in the automotive market with its MCUs and touch controllers being part of the top-ten car vendors. It’s interesting to note that, beyond its MCU roots, Atmel has a lot of history in automotive electronics as well. Atmel was one of the first chipmakers to enter the automotive market.

Moreover, Atmel bought the IC division of Temic Telefunken Microelectronic GmbH for approximately $110 million back in 1998. Telefunken was an automotive electronics pioneer with an early success in electronic ignition chips that made way into Volkswagen cars back in 1980.

The release of SAM DA1 series marks a remarkable opportunity as well as a crafty challenge for Atmel in the twilight worlds of MCU and automotive electronics. Tom Hackenberg, a senior analyst at IHS, calls the phenomenon ‘SoC on wheels.’

Hackenberg says that the automotive industry consumed approximately a third of all MCUs shipped in 2013. However, now there is an SoC on the road, the brain behind the connected car, and it commands a deeper understanding of the AEC-Q100 standard for automotive quality and ISO 26262 certification for car’s functional safety.

Atmel’s AvantCar touchscreen demo at the CES 2015

The integration of touch controller into SAM DA1 chips can be an important value proposition for the car OEMs who are burning midnight oil to develop cool infotainment platforms for their newer models. Next, while AEC Q100 Grade 2 qualification is a prominent part of the SAM DA1, Atmel might have to consider augmenting the ISO 26262 certification for functional safety, a vital requirement in ADAS and other connected car features.

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Majeed Ahmad is author of books Smartphone: Mobile Revolution at the Crossroads of Communications, Computing and Consumer Electronics and The Next Web of 50 Billion Devices: Mobile Internet’s Past, Present and Future.

 

Connect and control your IoT devices with the SmartEverything dev board

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Arrow’s latest development board is optimized for Internet of Things connections.

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Arrow Electronics has launched an Atmel | SMART based development board packed with sensor options, communication interfaces and connection to the cloud for Internet of Things (IoT) designs.

The board, which is aptly named SmartEverything, utilizes the SIGFOX global network cellular connectivity solution to enable access to the IoT.

SmartEverything is equipped with an Atmel | SMART ARM Cortex-M0+ based CPU USB host orchestrator chip to manage traffic between peripherals, while an Atmel CryptoAuthentication device (ATSHA204) enables the implementation of a full security SHA-256 hash algorithm with message authentication code.

Additional features of the dev board include STMicroelectronics proximity, humidity, temperature and acceleration sensors, a TDK Bluetooth Low Energy interface for short-range connectivity, and an NXP NFC tag with I2C serial interface for authentication. A Dynaflex 868MHz antenna and Linear Technology power management devices are also incorporated.