NXP has validated the compatibility of its LPC551x/S1x microcontroller (MCU) family for Alexa Connect Kit (ACK) – making it the market’s first ACK-validation to take advantage of the Arm® Cortex®-M33 architecture.
The goal of the ACK is to reduce complexity for engineers and offer a simplistic development path for connecting and integrating Alexa into your smart products. With ACK, you don't need to write an Alexa skill, manage a cloud service, or develop complex network and security firmware to connect your product to Alexa. ACK provides the managed services, software and tools to develop and manage your Alexa-connected products on an ongoing basis. Your users benefit from Alexa device control and other features, such as Amazon's Wi-Fi Simple Setup (WSS). You can easily start prototyping your product using the USI MT7697H Development Kit, which includes a Wi-Fi connectivity module.
As NXP works to massively deploy edge intelligence for a smarter, more secure world, we understand the growing concern from customers around the complexity of bringing connected intelligence to end products. Now we're exited to be able to offer a simple, easy-to-use, cost-effective solution with rich integration that is validated for ACK. As the most recent member added to the LPC5500 MCU series, the LPC551x/S1x MCU family is being broadly deployed across industrial and IoT applications and brings with it numerous new features, faster data transfers with high speed USB, CAN-FD for industrial communication and advanced security, among other peripherals.
Further supporting it’s security architecture, the LPC55S16 MCU recently was awarded Level 2 certification in the Arm® Platform Security Architecture (PSA) certification scheme, PSA Certified™. Additionally, the 150 MHz Cortex-M33 based LPC5500 MCUs leverage ultra-efficient 40-nm flash technology for cost and performance benefits, and come fully supported with NXP’s MCUXpresso developer ecosystem, which offers proven peripheral drivers, middleware enablement, software and device configuration tools, such as pins, peripherals and clock tree configuration.
Within an ACK enabled solution, the LPC5500 acts as the main application microcontroller, offering developers advanced embedded security, pin-, software- and peripheral-compatibility across the series with greater portfolio scalability. Developers can get started by using our associated LPC55S16-EVK development board with available design files and schematics, validated to work with Amazon's Alexa Connect Kit shield from USI, along with supporting documentation and enablement on NXP’s product page. The enablement offered by NXP provides an excellent starting point for customers and the scalability of the portfolio will help ensure that engineers can migrate to another device within the LPC5500 MCU series, since all meet Amazon’s minimum requirements for the ACK solution.
NXP’s LPC55S16-EVK, combined with the ACK shield, enables our customers to test, evaluate and demonstrate Amazon services, supported capabilities and product benefits. By combining LPC5500 with Alexa Connect Kit, developers get the benefit from two advanced technologies, helping to ensure the value-added consumer conveniences and experience can be seamlessly incorporated in their end products. Existing Amazon product technologies, such as Alexa connectivity, Wi-Fi Simple Setup and Amazon Dash Replenishment, can now be more quickly and easily integrated into new use cases when developers integrate LPC5500 with the ACK into their next generation of consumer products and smart home appliances.
Learn more about the LPC55S16-EVK board for Alexa Connect Kit (ACK).
Andy Lin is a Global Segment Lead for the Edge Processing Business Line with NXP, overseeing the company’s global strategy to grow the Smart Home segment business. Andy has more than 15 years of engineering and marketing experience in the semiconductor industry. Andy received his master’s degree in Electrical Engineering in 2002.
