SOM combines powerful edge processing with Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity

Laird Connectivity and Boundary Devices have announced the Nitrogen8M Plus in a SMARC form factor. It is the first product in its SOM portfolio to conform to the SMARC industry standard.

The solution is powered by NXP's i.MX 8M Plus applications processor, NXP PMIC PCA9450, and Laird Connectivity's Sterling-LWB5+ Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.2 combo radio module based on Infineon's CYW4373E silicon. This high-performance SOM, combined with the new SMARC carrier/development board, serves as an SBC that can greatly speed customer products to market.

"The Nitrogen8M Plus SMARC is our first integrated product that delivers Boundary Devices' SOM and NXP i.MX processor expertise with Laird Connectivity's wireless capabilities," said Dan Kephart, senior product manager, Laird Connectivity. "Available in the SMARC 2.1 form factor, this product provides a secure, smart, standardised, and connected IoT solution that easily scales with customer's applications."

It is an ideal solution for powerful heterogenous multiprocessing, providing a versatile, power efficient up to 1.8GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 microprocessor and 800MHz Cortex-M7 microcontroller that allows customers to run Linux and an RTOS on dedicated, hardware-firewalled subsystems. Customers can use hardware acceleration with high-performance edge machine learning through an integrated neural processing unit, delivering up to 2.3 TOPS. Multiple display, network, data, audio, and camera interfaces are available.

The solution is excellent for various applications, including harsh, IIoT rugged handheld devices, IIoT gateways, IoT vision solutions, and healthcare devices. It supports a robust, secure, and optionally encrypted boot mechanism to provide only trusted software boots on a user's device. Optionally store and use secure keys, certificates, and credentials in a run-time isolated trusted environment.