Although not officially released until December we were able to get a glimpse of Atmel corporation’s SmartConnect SAM W25 module at electronica 2014. This small module has been designed for use in IoT edge node applications. Edge nodes are parts of the IoT infrastructure where information interacts with physical events; these devices might, for example be inputting information from sensors or outputting control actions. The nodes also need to adapt the information to and from the network and provide data security.

The SAM W25 module is the first fully-integrated FCC-certified Wi-Fi module with a standalone MCU and hardware security all sourced from the same vendor. It contains Atmel's recently announced 2.4 GHz IEEE 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi WINC1500 communication chip along with an Atmel SMART SAM D21 ARM Cortex M0+-based MCU and Atmel’s ATECC108A optimised CryptoAuthentication engine with ultra-secure hardware-based key storage for secure connectivity.

Its main features are;

  1. Turnkey system with integrated software that includes TLS 1.0 and a TCP/IP stack WPA2 Personal and Enterprise security;
  2. FCC-certified 2.4GHz IEEE 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi WINC1500;
  3. Atmel | SMART ARM Cortex M0+-based SAM D21; 256KB Flash; 32KB SRAM;
  4. Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI);
  5. Over-the-air updates;
  6. ATECC108A CryptoAuthentication engine with ultra-secure hardware-based key storage for secure connectivity.

For developers, the company will also be offering a SAM W25 integrated module on an Xplained starter kit platform which will be available next month