STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, and Tapko Technologies, a leader in KNX solutions for home and building control, have released a KNX communication stack for all ST’s STM8 and STM32 microcontrollers.
This initiative will speed up development of smart-building systems for automatic lighting, heating and other environmental controls that help enhance energy efficiency and user comfort.
The move addresses a market estimated at over €600 million in Europe alone, and allows engineers to leverage the advanced capabilities of ST’s STM8 and STM32 microcontroller families for innovative residential or commercial building-automation products. Over 500 variants are available, including ultra-low-power STM8L and STM32L devices, maximizing freedom to optimize price, power consumption and functionality.
KNX is currently used in over 70% of European smart-home devices. As an open standard, KNX promotes interoperability, saves costs and enhances flexibility for product developers and equipment owners. Now managed by the KNX Association, it is ratified as CENELEC EN 50090 or CEN EN 13321-1 in Europe, GB/Z 20965 in China, ANSI/ASHRAE 135 in the USA, and globally as ISO/IEC 14543-3.
“With ST’s large families of 8-bit and 32-bit microcontrollers now readily available to the KNX community, we expect to see even more widespread deployment within Europe and worldwide of smart-building systems that help reduce the energy usage and environmental impact of homes, offices and factories everywhere,” said Petar Tomić, CEO of Tapko Technologies GmbH.
“The STM8 and STM32 families offer advanced features, extremely low energy consumption and extensive compatibility between devices, families and software helping to minimize development costs and time to market,” said Michel Buffa, Microcontroller Division Manager, STMicroelectronics. ”With the KNX stack now also ported, our customers can leverage this popular protocol to create competitive, high-performing smart-building solutions.”
ST’s 8-bit STM8 microcontrollers and 32-bit STM32 ARM® Cortex™-M devices provide powerful features such as an LCD controller, motor-control timers, Power-On Reset, real-time clock, memory-protection unit, dual watchdogs, anti-tamper protection, embedded EEPROM, fast and low power Analog to Digital Converter, flexible DMA matrix and optimized power consumption modes for battery-operated applications. The STM8L and STM32L best-in-class ultra-low power is the result of ST’s 130nm and 110nm low-leakage process, unique design techniques ensuring high performance from a voltage supply as low as 1.65V, and multiple power-management modes with fast wake-up.
In addition, the high-performance STM32F2 series, which features up to 1Mbyte Flash, Ethernet MAC and hardware encryption, provides support for KNX tunneling over IP allowing secure communication with smart-building systems via the Internet.
About STMicroelectronics
ST is a global leader in the semiconductor market serving customers across the spectrum of sense and power and automotive products and embedded processing solutions. From energy management and savings to trust and data security, from healthcare and wellness to smart consumer devices, in the home, car and office, at work and at play, ST is found everywhere microelectronics make a positive and innovative contribution to people's life. By getting more from technology to get more from life, ST stands for life.augmented.
In 2012, the Company’s net revenues were $8.49 billion. Further information on ST can be found at www.st.com.
About Tapko Technologies
Tapko Technologies GmbH was established in October 1999 by Klaus Adler and Petar Tomic who were part of the original development group of EIB over 2 decades ago.
The principal office is located in Regensburg, South Germany. The main business area is building automation. Tapko is full KNX Member and ISO 9001/2008 certified.
With its partner APRICUM d.o.o., Tapko has been building a constantly growing manufacturing place for innovative KNX products since 2001. APRICUM d.o.o. is located in Split, Croatia, and is under the leadership of Olivera Tomic.
In May 2011 Christian Gossé and Tapko established TAPKO GOSSÉ & TECH. This fast developing company with location in Mutzig, near Strasbourg in France, is managed by Christian Gossé. He has done a significant contribution to the KNX specification and is one of the fathers of KNX-RF. TAPKO GOSSÉ & TECH is specialised in KNX-RF products with a long lasting experience in industrial product development.