The first smart meter system chip

STMicroelectronics (ST), the world's leading semiconductor supplier, spans multiple electronic applications, and announces the industry's first fully-featured smart meter system (SoC, System-on-Chip). The new product integrates high-precision measurement and flexible programmable processing functions on a single chip, power line communication subsystem (PLC), and advanced anti-theft security features.

The STCOMET10 system-on-chip integrates STMicroelectronics' accumulated experience in power line communications and smart metering for more than 20 years and manufacturing more than 90 million chips, and its level of integration is unprecedented in the industry. OEMs using this unique future-proof smart meter platform can simplify smart meter design, shorten time-to-market, and significantly reduce device usage and material costs.

As a result of close cooperation between STMicroelectronics and power supply companies and meter companies, the STCOMET10 system chip has played an important role in France’s investment in the $27 million SOGRID smart grid communications system project.

With a unique modular and integrated mixed-signal design, STCOMET10 integrates the highest system flexibility and programmability and the highest performance on a single chip to meet the needs of dedicated smart meter functions.

Matteo Lo Presti, Vice President of STMicroelectronics and General Manager of industrial applications and power conversion products, said: "As a highly cost-effective and highly flexible smart meter solution, STCOMET10 brings more advantages and benefits to the smart grid, including Power grid real-time control and adaptive capabilities, renewable energy decentralized grid-connected power generation, and multi-communication standards support. A total of 1.7 billion communication devices are connected to this smart grid. STCOMET10 can significantly increase the interoperability and energy efficiency of these devices."

Features of the STCOMET10 SoC include a fully programmable power line communication signal processing engine for multi-protocol management; an advanced ARM® CortexTM-M4 based application processing subsystem with integrated flash memory and RAM; and a highly accurate 3-channel analog digital meter measurement Front-end and security engine. In particular, this smart meter system chip can support important PLC communication protocols such as METERS AND MORE®, G3-PLC®, IEEE 1901.2 and PRIME®. The chip's flexibility and wide range of protocols allow operators to deploy and remotely configure smart meters worldwide, support future new protocols, and minimize the cost of ownership over the life of the meter.

The metering subsystem is higher than Class 0.2 meter accuracy, incorporating three high precision 24-bit analog-to-digital converters, filters and configurable hard-wired DSP processors for energy calculations. The internal PLC engine supports up to 28V peak-to-peak output signals and extends the bandwidth to 500kHz, while the dedicated security engine supports the latest encryption algorithms and multiple security modes, providing personal privacy protection and data security protection, thereby enhancing the system-on-chip products value.