New-Tech Europe Magazine | April 2017

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new products
cells.
Cypress Unveils PSoC 6, the Industry’s Lowest
Power, Most Flexible MCU Architecture, Setting a
New Standard for Battery-powered, Secure IoT
Devices
Game-changing MCU Architecture Delivers a Dual-Core
Processing Platform that Seamlessly Integrates Critical,
Hardware-Based Security and Connectivity for the IoT
EMBEDDEDWORLD,NUREMBERG,CypressSemiconductor
Corp. (NASDAQ: CY) today announced PSoC® 6, its newest
microcontroller (MCU) architecture that is purpose-built for the
Internet of Things (IoT). The architecture is built on ultra-low-
power 40-nm process technology and delivers the industry’s
lowest power and most flexible solution, with integrated
security features required for next-generation IoT devices.
The architecture fills a gap in the IoT solution space between
power-hungry and higher-cost application processors and
performance-challenged, single-core MCUs. The dual-core
ARM® Cortex®-M4 and Cortex®-M0+ architecture lets
designers optimize for power and performance simultaneously.
PSoC 6 enables engineers to uniquely create innovative,
next-generation IoT devices leveraging the unique PSoC
fabric with its easy-to-use, software-defined peripherals. More
information on the PSoC 6 MCU architecture and access to
the PSoC 6 Early Adopter Community is available at http://
“As the leader in wireless solutions for the IoT, we saw first-
hand that our customers need a better processing solution that
balances performance and power, while implementing critical
security functions for connected devices,” said Hassane El-
Khoury, President and CEO at Cypress. “Our PSoC 6 MCU
architecture is purpose-built to solve these problems, marking
a significant addition to our broad embedded systems solution
portfolio for the IoT.”
Setting a New, Industry-leading, Ultra-Low-Power Benchmark
Cypress’ proprietary ultra-low-power 40-nm SONOS process
technology enables the PSoC 6 MCU architecture to feature
industry-leading power consumption with 22 µA/MHz and
15 µA/MHz of active power on the ARM Cortex-M4 and
Cortex-M0+ cores, respectively. With dynamic voltage and
frequency scaling (DVFS), the PSoC 6 MCU architecture offers
both performance- and power-critical processing capability.
The dual-core architecture enables power-optimized system
design where the auxiliary core can be used as an offload
engine for power efficiency, allowing the main core to sleep.
Raising the Bar for IoT Security with a Trusted Solution
The PSoC 6 MCU architecture provides a hardware-
based Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) with secure
boot capability and integrated secure data storage to
protect firmware, applications and secure assets such as
cryptographic keys. PSoC 6 implements a broad set of
industry-standard symmetric and asymmetric cryptographic
algorithms, including Elliptical-Curve Cryptography (ECC),
Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), and Secure Hash
Algorithms (SHA 1,2,3) in an integrated hardware coprocessor
designed to offload compute-intensive tasks. The architecture
supports multiple, simultaneous secure environments without
the need for external memories or secure elements, and
offers scalable secure memory for multiple, independent user-
defined security policies.
“Every connected device represents a potential network
vulnerability. With billions of potential vulnerabilities, security
is paramount and the need to design in security at the lowest
level in an IoT device is more important than ever,” said John
Weil, vice president of the MCU Business Unit at Cypress. “We
built PSoC 6 to enable our customers to protect their products
from cyber-attacks while at the same time empowering them
to create new, innovative IoT devices leveraging the flexible
and easy-to-use PSoC architecture.”
Enabling New, Innovative IoT Devices with Intuitive Software
Support
Offering best-in-class flexibility and ease-of-use, the PSoC 6
MCU architecture can serve as the catalyst for differentiated,
visionary IoT devices. Software-defined peripherals can
be used to create custom analog front-ends (AFEs) or
digital interfaces for innovative system components such as
electronic-ink displays. The architecture offers flexible wireless
connectivity options, including fully integrated Bluetooth Low
Energy (BLE) 5.0. The PSoC 6 MCU architecture features the
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