Laird Connectivity announced the launch of the newest addition to their system-on-module (SOM) portfolio, the Summit SOM 8M Plus. This new SOM is a highly-integrated and comprehensive hardware and software solution that combines NXP Semiconductors multi-core applications processing with dual-band 2×2 Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity. The Summit SOM 8M Plus is Laird Connectivity’s most versatile, feature-rich, and secure SOM to date, truly perfect for serving as the core platform for advanced wireless IoT applications.
Powered by the NXP i.MX 8M Plus applications processor and the 88W8997 wireless SoC, the Summit SOM 8M Plus is an ideal solution for powerful heterogeneous multiprocessing, delivering a versatile, power-efficient quad Arm Cortex-A53 MPU and Cortex-M7. Customers can leverage hardware acceleration for machine learning with an integrated 2.3 TOPS neural processing unit, rich multimedia (graphics, video, vision, and audio) with a DSP core and GPU, advanced connectivity, and enhanced security for high-performance, flexible solutions. The Summit SOM 8M Plus’s exhaustive array of interfaces includes support for up to three displays and several options for video out, camera, audio, and I/O. The onboard Cortex-A53 and Cortex-M7 cores allow simultaneous Linux and RTOS execution on dedicated, firewalled subsystems, and the quad-core i.MX 8M Plus SoC is powerful enough to run multiple instances of Linux for various purposes, such as user interface, connectivity, and more.
Security and longevity are core pillars of the Summit SOM 8M Plus. It is designed from the ground up with a powerful, comprehensive Summit Suite security architecture. The Summit Suite Chain of Trust secure enclave and secure boot, powered by the i.MX 8M Plus, enables the root of trust hardware-based software validation and a high-performance and flexible secure storage system for passwords, certificates, and data storage, with an upcoming Summit Suite FIPS Cryptographic module (FIPS 140-3 Level 1) validation. With pin-compatible connectivity, refreshed Summit SOM 8M Plus modules will be available in the future as NXP updates their 2×2 Wi-Fi + Bluetooth combo silicon to the latest standards. Additionally, the i.MX 8M Plus processor is backed by NXP’s Product Longevity Program, which ensures long-term availability of 15-plus years.
The Summit SOM 8M Plus is ideal for a broad range of applications, including harsh, industrial IoT rugged handheld devices, industrial IoT gateways, IoT vision solutions, and healthcare devices. It supports the latest WPA3-Personal, WPA3-Enterprise, and WPA3-Enterprise CNSA/SuiteB 192-bit security standards and has an upcoming FIPS 140-3 certification. It is globally certified to reduce customers’ barriers to entry. Regulatory certifications will include FCC, IC, CE, RCM, MIC, and Bluetooth SIG approvals.
