Renesas Unveils New Modular IoT Development Platform
Renesas Electronics has released an innovative new IoT system design platform that significantly eases the prototyping of IoT systems.
The Renesas Quick-Connect IoT system consists of standardized boards and interfaces, enabling designers to quickly and easily connect a wide range of sensors to MCU development boards.
“We are laser-focused on delivering solutions that enable customers to get to market faster with superior end products,” said DK Singh, Senior Director of the Systems and Solutions Team at Renesas. “For example, we’ve developed hundreds of Winning Combinations that give our customers an elevated design platform to mitigate the design risks and reduce development time. Quick-Connect IoT is the latest example of our commitment in this area and we will expand its coverage to support more boards and devices in the future. Additionally, having a standardized hardware connectivity platform allows customers to use compatible Pmods developed by third parties and other suppliers.”
“The new Pmod interface Type 6A manifests our vision of making system prototyping easier and more accessible,” said Talesa Bleything, Director of Marketing at Digilent, Inc. “It conforms to the I2C specifications with an optional interrupt and reset pin plus optional control signals, giving users added flexibility for diverse types of system development.”
“Our IoT customers require more than great MCUs, sensors and software,” said Chris Allexandre, Senior Vice President of Sales and Digital Marketing, IoT and Infrastructure Business Unit at Renesas. “Quick-Connect IoT is a game-changer that extends our leadership in the IoT market.”
The new system also delivers core software building blocks that are portable between boards, greatly reducing coding requirements.
As part of the Quick-Connect IoT system, Renesas has worked with Digilent, Inc. in creating a new expanded I2C Pmod Interface, Type 6A, for wider coverage and added flexibility. Renesas has standardized the new Pmod 6A connector from Digilent for new sensor Pmods and MCU development kits.
Renesas has also redefined common software APIs (Application Program Interfaces) and HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) code for a wide variety of sensors. These are embedded into the Renesas e2 studio integrated development environment.
Initially, Quick-Connect IoT will include over a dozen new Renesas sensor Pmods and other modular boards, including air quality sensors, flow sensors, bio-sensing, time of flight, temperature and other sensing elements.
