Mission-critical memory in IoT and Industry 4.0 for smarter and more connected factories

With the advent of the Internet of Things and Industry 4.0, factories are growing smarter and more connected. In these factories, Industry 4.0 represents a paradigm shift from “centralized” to “decentralized” factory automation. This means that sensors, motor controls and drives at the field-level, not only collect and feed data to control-level equipment like PLC, but also make decisions locally to correct or optimize processes. Next-generation wireless IoT sensor nodes and industrial control systems need low-pin-count, high-performance non-volatile memories to log user and sensor data continuously and to instantly capture system state data, in the case of power loss. Cypress’ new ExcelonTM-Ultra family of F-RAM is purpose-built for this and allows a low-pin-count high-speed interface with unlimited endurance, low-power operation, fast writes, and instant non-volatility. Also, wireless IoT sensor nodes are power-constrained and need non-volatile memories that can continuously log real-time system data, over the life of the sensor node, using the lowest power consumption. For this application, Excelon is an ideal choice and is an energy efficient non-volatile memory, consuming 200x less energy than serial EEPROM and 3,000x less energy than NOR Flash. The Excelon development kit is a low-cost hardware platform that enables design and debug with Excelon F-RAM using the Cypress PSoC 63 Line of MCUs. Offering on-board low-power PSoC 63 controller and BLE connectivity, the kit provides the key components required to develop a lower-power and secure IoT system with energy-efficient, local data-logging with Excelon F-RAM.