Extended BLE MCU family for automotive wireless applications

onsemi has released an ultra-low power automotive-grade wireless microcontroller with Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity. The NCV-RSL15 is excellent for vehicle manufacturers increasingly favouring wireless connectivity to decrease the cost and weight of excess cabling as the number of sensors and in-vehicle communication increases. The new microcontroller also manages heightened security concerns resulting from more sensors and possible attack vectors.

While the lists of sensors and general functionality in TMS and other sensing applications continue to increase, the power consumption budget has yet to grow. At the same time, some applications now need a ten-year battery lifetime. The device is certified by the EEMBC as the industry’s lowest power secure, wireless microcontroller, providing the proprietary smart sense power mode, it is intended to utilise as little power as feasible. Being able to conserve more battery directly correlates to increased product longevity.

“Excelling at applications such as vehicle access and Tyre Monitoring Systems, the miniature size of NCV-RSL15 makes it perfectly suited for portable remote access devices and other space-constrained in-tire and in-vehicle locations,” said Michel De Mey, vice president of the Industrial Solutions Division, onsemi. “By combining ultra-low power consumption with a tiny footprint and the latest technology in embedded security into one device, we enable our customers to meet their complex sensing-related design challenges for wireless-enabled automotive applications.”

As the number of access points grows, so does the potential attack vectors that has to be secured to protect against unauthorised wireless access to the vehicle’s central body computer or CPU. The device provides the latest in embedded security with Arm CryptoCell offering hardware-based root-of-trust secure boot, many user-accessible hardware-accelerated cryptographic algorithms, and FOTA capabilities to provide future firmware updates and deployment of security patches.

With its rich library of sample code, the complete and simple-to-use software development kit delivers a springboard for application development.