As IoT cloud technology develops, industrial communication often shares information and exchanges data between multiple devices. Most of the factory automation nowadays uses RS-232, RS-485, CAN, and Ethernet interfaces to interconnect. Still, since the communication protocols of the various interfaces are not compatible with one another, all information must be uploaded to the cloud through the internet to satisfy industrial IoT needs. Therefore, using a specific hardware converter to convert interface data such as serial or RS485 through protocols and then sending them to the internet is one way to go. This particular hardware is the Nuvoton multi-protocol converter chip that we will introduce today, NuMicro® M487 and NUC980. 

Multi-protocol converters are also called bridges; they allow hosts that use different high-level protocols for network communication to communicate with one another. They support various distributed industrial control applications, and the commonly used protocol conversion types include:

• Protocol gateway: Performs protocol conversions between network areas of different protocols.
• Application gateway: A system for translating data between different data formats.
• Security gateway: An integration of various technologies; it has essential and unique protection functions.

Nuvoton's NuMicro® M487 Ethernet series support 1.8V to 3.6V operating voltage and -40°C to 105°C industrial-grade operating temperatures. This series is equipped with 10/100 Mbps Ethernet MAC, RMII interfaces, hardware encryption engines, and multiple communication serial interfaces such as 2 CAN 2.0B interfaces and up to 6 low-power UART interfaces. In addition to the fully equipped hardware, M487 can also run miniaturized operating systems. It has a secure boot function built-in, and it can meet the needs of a security gateway and protocol conversion that requires real-time transmission simultaneously. It can also mount many real-time systems such as mbed, FreeRTOS, and Ali-OS, etc., further improving the system's immediacy.

In terms of cloud connection, M487 provides complete connection examples for mainstream clouds such as Amazon, Pelion, Ali-Cloud, etc., eliminating cloud connection problems of the application terminal and helping customers accelerate the development for integrated application solutions multi-protocol converter and cloud services.

The main features of Nuvoton's NUC980 series include built-in high capacity DRAM 128MB SDRAM; the built-in DRAM can save overall design complexity, reduce the PCB size significantly and reduce electromagnetic interference (EMI), and further improving system stability; this is also an essential basic requirement of a gateway converter. NUC980 is also configured with many peripheral functions, including ten sets of UART ports, four sets of CAN 2.0 B and dual Ethernet, etc., to run Linux with complete resource sharing. There is no need to develop related driver protocols by yourself, fully satisfying the application requirements of gateway-level multi-protocol converters.