On March 14 in Nuremberg, Germany, Embedded World 2023 (EW2023) opened with the theme of "embedded responsibility and sustainability" to promote the latest trends and technology innovations in the embedded system design field, bringing industry exhibitors from all over the world in one place. GigaDevice showcased various industry-leading MCU products, showed the ever-growing MCU ecosystem, and promoted its innovative solutions. GD32 is working with global partners to provide high-quality and convenient local support services with a worldwide network, helping customers achieve fast product development and sustainable business growth.

▲ GigaDevice's Booth at the Embedded World 2023

The GD32F470 high-performance MCU series was selected as a nominee for the "Top Things to See award" at Embedded World by Embedded Computing Design. It was recommended to thousands of design engineers worldwide. Meanwhile, the GD32E230 series (value-added MCUs) was nominated for the coveted "Best-in-Show" award.

▲ Industry Media and Expert Coverage of GigaDevice

Mr. Reuben Townsend, GigaDevice' Europe FAE Manager, gave an interview to EE Times Europe, the renowned media outlet in electronics technology, to introduce the features and innovative solutions of several high-performance MCUs, including the GD32E5, GD32H7, GD32W515, and GD32F470 MCUs.

▲ Video interview with Mr. Ruben Townsend by EE Times Europe

Breaking through the Boundaries of Traditional Products

Processing efficiency and core requirements address customer needs

GigaDevice's flagship GD32H7 high-performance MCU series was pre-released during the show, and this exhibition is the debut of the GD32H7 series development demo and evaluation board.

▲ GD32H7xxI-EVAL Board

The latest flagship high-performance GD32H7 product family is based on an advanced ARM® Cortex®-M7 core at 600MHz clock frequency, with built-in advanced DSP and FPU. It offers 1024KB to 3840KB on-chip Flash and 1024KB SRAM, including 512KB Tightly-Coupled Memory (TCM) for maximum efficiency. The GD32H7 is equipped with a TFT (Thin Film Transistor), LCD controller, and a hardware graphics accelerator for more excellent display quality and an integrated encryption feature for data security. It is suitable for digital signal processing, motor control, power supply, energy storage, audio and speech recognition systems, edge computing, AI, and other high-end applications.

Refined Energy Management

Helping global customers enter a sustainable future

In recent years, the renewable energy market has been developing rapidly. PV inverters combined with energy storage systems can effectively manage energy conversion and create synergy and integration with non-renewable energy sources. The PV inverter plus energy storage systems have become one of the world's hottest energy development trends.

With its high core frequency, large memory, high-precision timer, and high-speed ADC, the GD32F4 high-performance MCUs are widely used in core systems such as PV inverters, energy storage, and battery management. In addition, the GD32F4's advanced peripheral interfaces, TFT-LCD controller, and image processing accelerator can support communication, monitoring, and HMI functions in renewable energy systems, helping new energy systems quickly access the cloud intelligently and seize market opportunities.

▲ GD32F4 Series Battery Energy Storage Modules

Switching Mode Power Supply systems (SMPS) are regulated power supplies that use high-frequency switching regulators to convert and control stable DC power output. Compared to traditional power supplies, digital power supplies have the advantages of high efficiency, low heat dissipation, and high power density.

At Embedded World, GD32 MCUs exhibited two digital power supply solutions. The newly launched 500W digital power solution adopts bridged PFC and half-bridge LLC topology: the PFC circuit is controlled by GD32E230C, with 220V AC input and 415V DC output; the LLC circuit is controlled by GD32E503R, with 415V DC input and 24V DC output, and SHRTIMER is used to manage the LLC MOS tube frequency change to obtain higher control accuracy, the maximum efficiency of the whole system can reach more than 90%.

▲ GD32E230 Series + GD32E503 Series of PFC+LLC Switching Mode Power Supply Solution

The GD32E5 MCU series is based on the Arm® Cortex®-M33 core with a built-in hardware multiplier/divider. It provides a complete DSP instruction set, a single-precision floating-point unit with hardware trigonometric accelerator for digital signal processing, and a switching mode power supply with enhanced computing power. It can replace traditional DSPs, run MPPT algorithms to achieve maximum power tracking of PV inverters, and implement data collection, communication monitoring, and fast shutdown functions.

▲ GD32E503 Series of Switching Mode Power Supply Solution

The GD32E5 has a built-in 90ps super high-resolution timer (SHRTimer) and five independent counters, which can generate five groups of 2 PWM control signals with complementary dead time outputs. It can be linked with other peripherals to generate the high-frequency waveforms required for sine wave inverters.

Enhanced Graphics Processing Capabilities

Empowering Dazzling Upgrade of Human-Machine Interface

Human Machine Interface (HMI) technology is rapidly evolving, connecting industrial control devices such as PLCs, inverters, meters, and home central control platforms through serial ports, Ethernet, and CAN bus interfaces. Thus it allows users to interact with end devices and home appliances at work and home in a smarter, easier, and more intuitive way.

The processor largely determines the overall performance of the HMI. The GD32F4 series has been adopted by many industrial, and high-end consumer customers with HMI needs due to the features of high performance, connectivity, and large memory capacity.

LVGL, a lightweight, open-source, and free embedded GUI design tool running on the GD32F470 series, can unleash unlimited potential. The demo on display is equipped with a 7-inch LCD with a resolution of 1024*600 pixels, demonstrating several built-in component functions, including buttons, labels, sliders, charts, keyboards, meters, curves, and tables.

▲ GD32F470 LVGL GUI Solution

TARA Systems, a software tools and services company founded in 1990, provides solutions for millions of embedded systems in consumer electronics, industrial, automotive, and mobile devices.

Embedded Wizard is the embedded GUI technology by TARA Systems that create high-performance GUIs even on resource-limited MCU platforms. With the advantages of streamlined code, rich functionality, scalability, and easy development, it can effectively simplify users' GUI development on GD32 MCUs and accelerate the pace of product development and time-to-market.

▲ Embedded Wizard GUI Solution

With IoT and AI growing, emerging applications that support voice control, face and gesture recognition, and ML algorithms combined with HMI technology are emerging, enriching IoT devices' intelligent control and interaction.

A Wide Range of Protocols Support

The Rich Connectivity of GD32 Attracts Market Attention

The GD32W515 series is the first wireless Wi-Fi MCU from GigaDevice, designed based on the Cortex®-M33 core to provide enhanced computing power and rich integration resources for AIoT applications.

The IoT Wi-Fi module X115Z-RA, jointly launched by GD32 and FN-LINK, has obtained PSA Level 1 and PSA Functional API certification for the Arm platform security architecture, Wi-Fi Alliance certification, and RF FCC/CE compliance certification. With the rich resources and peripherals of the MCU, the module is fully compatible with the GD32 MCU development environment and use habits. Developers can quickly build Wi-Fi connectivity solutions.

▲ GD32W515 Series of Wi-Fi Modules

GigaDevice also provides a three-in-one hardware solution that integrates a brushless motor, stepper motor, and Wi-Fi communication to support voice control, intelligent network distribution, and OTA upgrade. It includes the GD32W515 series of Wi-Fi MCU and GD30DR8413 high-performance motor driver chip. In addition, connected to the voice recognition chip via the UART interface, the solution supports local voice wake-up and recognition functions. It is suitable for rich application scenarios such as home appliances, central control panels, gateways, etc.

▲ GD32W515 Wireless FOC Fan Control + Local Voice Recognition Solution

By combining the RISC-V core with mainstream wireless connectivity technologies in the market, GigaDevice plans to launch Wi-Fi 6+BLE 5.2 wireless dual-mode MCU products this year. It enables customers' wireless connectivity to be more competitive in the market with the leading RF performance and rich integration resources. At the same time, GigaDevice continues to build a rich and diverse wireless AIoT development and application ecosystem, providing various smart home connectivity solutions, including matter, to help customers accelerate their product development cycle.

The GD32 MCUs support major RTOS and cloud connectivity protocols such as Amazon AWS Cloud Services, Azure RTOS, FreeRTOS, RT-Thread, and Zephyr. Certified part numbers of GD32 MCU are available on the corresponding websites, and all code can be downloaded for free from open-source hosting sites.

GD32E230 MCU series and GD30WS8805 power management chips are used in the TWS charger case application. It has been adopted by some industry customers and has shipped in mass production.

▲ GD32E230 Series of TWS Charger Case Solution

GD32L233 MCU series uses industry-leading ultra-low-power process and Arm® Cortex®-M23 cores with specially optimized low-power IP to provide ultra-high GPIO reuse rates for typical applications such as industrial meters, small consumer electronics, portable medical devices, battery management systems, data acquisition, and transmission, etc. The GD32L233-based logistics cold chain monitoring device uses a 12-bit high-resolution ADC to collect temperature sensor data. It uses embedded security IP TRNG and CAU to encrypt and decrypt data collection and transmission and provides multiple power-saving modes to extend the battery life of portable devices.

▲ GD32L233 Logistics Cold Chain Solution

GigaDevice will continue to drive the iteration of the low-power MCU product lineup from the process, core, product architecture, analog IP, wake-up mechanism, and energy-saving mode. It is a continuous driver for energy application and energy efficiency optimization with various types of products and package types.

Packaged Solutions, Including Software and hardware

Meet the diverse needs of motor control applications

GD32 MCU-based motor control applications have been commercially deployed in various scenarios, such as service robots, smart home appliances, refrigeration compressors, balancing vehicles, power tools, industrial servo motors, etc., widely enabling innovation in many industries.

GD32 MCUs are integrated with independent multiplication and division units, high-precision timers and hardware accelerators, support for three-phase and six-channel PWM waveforms, and rich analog peripherals such as high-performance ADCs, high-speed op-amps, and comparators. The GD32 in-house motor algorithm can precisely control the size and direction of the magnetic field and perform "pixel-level" control. The MCU drives the motor and also drives the display, which can show the motor's working status and operating parameters in real-time.

Continuous Optimization of User Experience

The Self-evolving GD32 Ecosystem

The key reason why customers have trusted GigaDevice is that GD32 has created a mutually beneficial development ecosystem. It closely integrates products, users, and partners, allowing customers to choose the tools that meet their needs and build more suitable solutions for their development, realizing the need for autonomy and control while effectively reducing R&D costs.

On the one hand, GigaDevice continues to explore the potential of GD32 series products, providing developers with hardware and software development kits and various in-house solutions and algorithms. On the other hand, GD32 works with global partners and continues to launch more IDEs, EVB development kits, GUIs, security components, embedded AI, operating systems, and cloud connectivity options for users.

▲ Continuously strengthen cooperation with ecosystem partners to support customer needs

SEGGER, an industry well-known embedded tools manufacturer, has fully cooperated with GigaDevice. SEGGER tools support GD32 MCU products, including Arm and RISC-V cores. Some of those tools are Embedded Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE), industrial-leading J-Link debug probe, real-time operating system embOS, and Software libraries for communication, data storage, compressed sensing, IoT areas, and Flash programming.

The latest release of IAR Embedded Workbench® for Arm 9.32.1 from Sweden's leading software developer, IAR Systems, fully supports the GD32 MCU family, using the emulation and debugging tool I-jet as a JTAG hardware debug emulator, connected via USB to a host PC running Windows. The GD32 series MCUs can be developed using IAR Embedded Workbench in real-time.

Embeetle, an innovative microcontroller IDE provider from Belgium, has designed a new integrated development environment for embedded software development, providing users with a very intuitive experience. Embeetle now has support for both Arm and RISC-V core-based GD32 MCUs, bringing the unique Embeetle IDE to GD32 MCU users, thus providing a balanced processing power between reducing power consumption and providing rich peripherals.

ProMik, the world's leading supplier of development and mass-production tools, showcased its network-safe programming solution for the GD32VF103 series of MCUs. With its MSP series programmers, ProMik can provide integrated debugging capabilities for GD32 MCUs to build a secure production environment with both time and cost efficiency. In addition, P&E Micro, Algocraft, SMH Technologies, and other industry-leading development and mass production tool manufacturers are exhibiting debug download tools that are efficient and secure for GD32 MCUs.

The famous inventor Benjamin Franklin once said, "as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours..." GigaDevice will further enrich the GD32 MCU product family to meet the differentiated market demand. Meanwhile, by strengthening the investment in in-house solutions and ecosystem breadth, it will undoubtedly continue to add the core value of GD32 and provide products and services to more quality customers worldwide.

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