Under the comprehensive promotion of policy guidance and support, market demand, and technological development, the smart meter market has developed rapidly. At present, the meter market in China is still in a situation where traditional mechanical meters and smart meters coexist, and the development level of the four major smart meters for water, electricity, gas, and heat is also different. In the wave of intelligent meters, components are undoubtedly a crucial part.

The Application and Development Process of MCU in the Meter Industry

The meter industry, as a proprietary application industry, combines some characteristics of both the consumer and industrial industries. It not only has a broad market prospect in the consumer industry, but also has higher requirements for the stability and reliability of MCU products in the industrial industry. At the same time, the intelligent meter industry is also an application scenario with a high proportion of networking, and has higher requirements for the functionality, performance, reliability, and low power consumption of MCU products.

Compared to industries such as wearables, smart homes, and consumer electronics, the meter industry requires continuous and stable operation of MCU 24/7, 365 days, and requires long-term operation for 10-16 years. This has high requirements for the reliability and stability of MCU, which can also be understood as the meter industry has a high technical threshold.

The algorithm and functions of gas meter products are relatively complex compared to water meters, and there are certain requirements for the upgrade function of meter products. In addition to the low power consumption characteristics of MCU products, there is also a large storage space for OTA upgrade backup processing. At the same time, in addition to mechanical digital display, intelligent gas meters also require LCD segment code screen display, which requires MCU to support segment code screen driver modules. Therefore, gas meters have higher requirements for MCU products.

The application of Wuhan Core Source Semiconductor MCU chips in the field of intelligent gas meters has also seen rapid development and has been applied in related product solutions. The product introduced today is the application solution of Wuhan Core Source Semiconductor CW32L083 in intelligent gas meters.

Features of gas meter control panel solution:

01 adopts NB IoT technology to meet the various needs of IoT gas meters for small data flow, low communication frequency, and low power consumption, and has the advantages of wide coverage, low cost, and large capacity;

02 Excellent low-power technology platform, achieving ultra-low operating and standby power consumption, ensuring long-term and stable operation of the gas meter system;

03 supports a large resource configuration of up to 256K FLASH+24K RAM, adapting to the development trend of remote communication, operating system, online upgrade, and multifunctional intelligent gas meter solutions;

04 integrates LCD driver, RTC with calibration compensation, high-precision ADC, as well as rich universal peripheral interfaces such as UART, LPUART, I2C, SPI, etc. Among them, LPUART supports multiple modes of wake-up under low power consumption;

05 has a powerful power management system (supporting power management units such as PDR, BOR, LVD, etc.), which can save emergency data when the battery voltage of the gas meter is below a certain threshold, ensuring that the product is in a safe state;

06 built-in security encryption module (supporting AES hardware computing unit 128/192/256 bit, supporting ECB/CBC/CTR/GCM/GMAC mode), combined with application solutions, can achieve data security;

Application Block Diagram of CW32L083VCT6 in Gas Meters

CW32L083VCT6 features and advantages:

● ARM Cortex-M0+32-bit kernel;

● Up to 256K Flash, 24K SRAM, data retention for up to 25 years;

● Built in up to 8x52 segment LCD driver;

● VLCD charge pump, power supply voltage drop does not affect display contrast;

● Support low-power mode Deep Sleep, including six low-power UARTs;

● Built in RTC with independent calibration, allowing for independent shutdown of various peripheral clocks;

● Internally integrated IR modulator, with a maximum data rate of 115.2kbps;

The Wuhan Core Source Semiconductor low-power MCU chip CW32L083 series has the characteristics of ultra-low power consumption, high reliability, and abundant resources. In the application of intelligent gas meters, it can more efficiently perform a series of functions such as data collection, display, storage, and transmission.

For chip purchase matters, please consult the sales and official agents of Wuhan Xinyuan. For more detailed information on MCU, please visit the official website of Wuhan Xinyuan: https://www.whxy.com .