In recent years, due to consumer electronics and personal healthcare innovation, the markets of various massage equipment continue to grow globally; eye massagers, shoulder and neck massagers, foot massagers to massage chairs, etc., are all very common now. According to the market research report, the global electronic massage instrument market from 2020 to 2024 is expected to grow from USD 661 million at a 6% CAGR, so the flourishing of the need for these types of products can be seen.

As a leading microcontroller manufacturer, Nuvoton launched the NuMicro M031BT that integrated advanced and precise control functions and is equipped with Bluetooth low-power 5.0 (BLE 5.0) application market. The operating frequency of the M031BT series is as high as 48 MHz and has built-in a maximum of 128 KB Flash and 16 KB SRAM; it provides 12 channels of 96 MHz PWM that can give control drive for brushless DC motors, high sampling rate ADC for voltage sampling, UART port that can be used for debugging or updating needs, and multiple sets of I/O interfaces for customers to use according to their applications. The above are outstanding performances of M031BT’s control functions that can be used on various electronic massages to launch diverse user mode switching needs.

Schematic diagram of realizing personal electronic massager applications using NuMicro® M031BT

Nuvoton NuMicro® M031BT series provides BLE 5.0, and 2.4 GHz dual-mode functions that can provide up to +8 dBm RF transmit power, -92 dBm good receiving sensitivity, and 1 Mb/s or 2 Mb/s transmission rate for RF applications. It can provide outstanding anti-noise performances in environments with severe 2.4GHz interference, increasing communication distance and reliability. For applications that utilize the penetration function of BLE5.0 for data transmission, Nuvoton also prepared a mobile APP that can be used to test connections and communications for customers to use as a reference for development.

NuMicro® M031BT Bluetooth transmission test APP

To protect the intellectual property rights of developers, the NuMicro® M031BT series has an additional Security Protection ROM (SPROM) embedded that provides an independent and secure encrypted execution area to protect critical program codes. The Flash lock bits design provides the function to prevent external access to the firmware or write protection. Each M031BT is equipped with a 96-bit unique identification (UID) chip and 128-bit unique customer identification (UCID), significantly improving the confidentiality of the product and the security of the codes.

Compared to traditional forms that use control microprocessors and Bluetooth communication modules, NuMicro® M031BT series integrated control and wireless transmission functions; the QFN48 package area is only 5mm x 5mm. With Nuvoton’s penetration sample program and antenna reference design, the development of Bluetooth low-power applications becomes very easy.