With the rapid development of industrial automation and networking needs, data in batch production is becoming more and more important; controlling the data means controlling huge business opportunities. Nuvoton released the NUC980 series for industrial IoT and industrial automation; not only do they have rich peripheral ports, including two sets of built-in Ethernet ports, they are also equipped with modules such as LoRa, NB-IoT, and 3G/4G LTE, etc., able to realize gateway products that can be applied in different scenarios, help customers collect and organize sensing data of each terminal, and further upload them to the cloud server to perform analyses.

The NUC980 series use the LQFP package; different package sizes provide different numbers of IO, and they have a maximum of 128MB built-in memory. The product combinations are as shown in Figure 1. The peripheral ports include 10 sets of UART, 2 sets of 10/100 Mbps Ethernet controllers, 2 sets of USB 2.0 host mode, 4 sets of CAN 2.0B bus, 4 sets of I2C, 2 sets of SPI, 1 set of SPI, 3 sets of EBI, 8 channels of PWM, and 8 channels of ADC. The rich peripheral interfaces can be used to connect various sensing equipment and data collection devices.

Figure 1 NUC980 series product combinations

Figure 2 is the illustrated diagram of the NUC980 gateway, DTU, data collection equipment, and RTU applications, etc. It uses the peripheral interfaces including UART, SPI, and I2C, etc. to collect sensor data, uses the Ethernet to connect other subsystems in the industrial environment, and uses the USB or SPI to connect wireless modules to upload the data to the cloud server and then perform big data analysis.

Figure 2 Gateway and DTU illustration diagram

The Linux software development kit of NUC980 can support network protocols including MQTT, OpenSSL, and HTTPS, etc.; based on the customer’s different application scenarios, different wireless modules can be used to connect to the internet. When Nuvoton NUC980 IIoT is used as the development platform for industrial IoT, third-party wireless modules can be connected to the NUC980 IIoT development board using the mini PCIe port through the PCB adapter designed by Nuvoton. The NUC980 core along with the PCB adapter can communicate with the NB-IoT and LTE modules through the USB interface; and when used with another PCB adapter, it can communicate with the LoRa wireless module through SPI, allowing customers to have more flexibility when choosing wireless modules. Nuvoton already supports several NB-IoT, LoRa, and LTE modules to realize the customers’ needs for different application scenarios.

Figure 3 Illustration diagram for NK-980IIOT PCB and NB-IoT/4G module connection

Figure 4 Illustration diagram for NK-980IIOT PCB and LoRa module connection

Nuvoton’s NK-980IIOT development platform can be used to create wired/wireless industrial system gateways; by using the built-in AES, SHA, ECC, and RSA hardware encryption engines, data can be encrypted during the entire transmission process to prevent important production or sensor data from being stolen. Various data collected by from the front line through the gateway can be sent to cloud servers such as Alibaba Cloud, Amazon or The Things Network to perform analyses, and then send the results to the mobile phone of administrators, grasping all information first-handed and allowing industrial manufacturing to be smarter. Data that has been through big data analysis even allows business executives to grasp business opportunities and win the market.

Besides the NUC980 IIoT IoT development platform, Nuvoton also provides a series of IoT development platforms, including M487, M2351, and M263A, etc. Detailed platform specifications are as follows:

Also, they can work with different cloud services based on different needs. The following is a list of various cloud services currently supported by Nuvoton’s IoT development platform:

Nuvoton’s NUC980 not only is suitable for industrial gateway products, but it can also be designed into DTU, RTU, and serial-to-Ethernet products; its application range includes smart agriculture, rail transit, smart manufacturing, smart cities, and various other industries. If you want to learn more about the NUC980, please refer to the following link of the official website: https://www.nuvoton.com/products/iot-solution/application/gateway/numaker-nuc980-iiot/

If you need a hardware platform to evaluate items, they can be purchased from Nuvoton’s online store: https://direct.nuvoton.com/tw/numaker-nuc980-iiot