Cost-effective and high-performance IoT SOM for professional applications

Update: March 24, 2023

Arduino has launched its new Portenta C33 SOM, based on the RA6M5, an Arm Cortex M33-based microcontroller from Renesas. The SOM is the latest addition to its Portenta family, designed to supply a complete and scalable platform for IoT edge devices. It provides a powerful microcontroller, connectivity, and security at a convenient price point, making it excellent for various applications, including Edge AI devices, IoT gateways, fleet management, remote control systems and process tracking.

The SOM provides professional developers with a production-ready IoT platform connecting the familiar Arduino environment with other high-level languages such as MicroPython. The module combines Wi-Fi and BLE connectivity with a broad variety of peripheral interfaces, including CAN, SAI, SPI and I2C. Also, the RA6M5’s integrated Secure Crypto Engine 9 (SCE9) with secure key storage provides industrial-grade security at the hardware level and the capability to achieve over-the-air firmware updates with Arduino IoT Cloud or other third-party services.

“We are committed to making Industrial IoT more accessible for a wide range of applications. Being part of the robust Arduino ecosystem is an important step toward achieving that goal,” said Chris Allexandre, senior vice president, CSMO and Head of the Global Sales and Marketing Unit at Renesas. “The SCE9 security on the Renesas devices has been certified according to CAVP, in conjunction with the existing SESIP1 and PSA Certified Level 2, which is ideal for the intended IoT environment.”

“We are excited to launch Portenta C33, which combines the power and efficiency of the Arm® Cortex® M33 with the flexibility and ease of use of the Arduino ecosystem made of thousands of libraries and tools to support a vast array of applications,” said Fabio Violante, CEO at Arduino. “This new system-on-module will bridge the gap between prototyping and deployment at scale, reducing the time to market by orders of magnitude. The cost-effective nature of this product unleashes a tremendous opportunity for IoT customers”.

The SOM can be deployed in factories, offices and residential buildings to monitor gas, electricity, water and any other utility consumption via a single system. Data can be collected, displayed and processed to pinpoint use trends in Arduino IoT Cloud charts, delivering an overall image for energy management optimisation and a reduction in cost.