ST's SoC platform for intelligent meters provides outstanding flexibility to meet diverse global technical requirements and standards.

– STMicroelectronics ( www.st.com , Country Manager for Korea Sung-keun Kang), a world-leading semiconductor company and the world's number one supplier of power management solutions, announced that its new STarGRID™ ST7590 power-line communication SoC (System-on-Chip) has been adopted and is currently in use in advanced AMM (Automatic Meter Management) equipment for Spain's new 'STAR Project'.

The 'STAR Project,' based on the PRIME (Powerline Intelligent Metering Evolution) standard, is an advanced metering infrastructure program led by the IBERDROLA power company. As part of the first phase of deployment, IBERDROLA plans to install approximately 100,000 PRIME-compatible intelligent meters in Castellón, Spain, by early 2011. Over the next few years, it is expected that more than 10 million intelligent meters will be deployed in Spain alone. AMM equipment adopting ST's STarGRID ST7590 SoC has passed all PRIME-compatible certification tests conducted by the international certification body KEMA.

The ST7590 SoC, the latest addition to ST's STarGRID family, is a flexible, scalable, and future-proof power line communication platform that can be easily adapted to the requirements and protocol standards of various smart-grid applications. Furthermore, the ST7590 platform supports more efficient power consumption and system cost optimization compared to general-purpose standalone DSP-based solutions that require additional analog front-end and power line driver components.

Pietro Menniti, Vice President and General Manager of STMicroelectronics’ Industrial Power Conversion Business Unit, stated, “By being selected as a semiconductor technology supplier for the Spanish STAR project, ST has once again demonstrated the advanced know-how it is building in this field. The STarGrid product family is an innovative power line communication technology that provides a flexible system-on-chip platform while meeting major global smart metering and smart grid standards. The exceptional high integration and flexibility offered by STarGRID enable key customers to simplify product design and significantly reduce BOM costs.”

Detailed technical introduction to STarGRID ST7590
Based on ST’s advanced BCD8 smart power technology, STarGRID can drive very low impedance loads with a current of more than 1A (RMS) by integrating a DSP engine optimized for various modulation schemes and physical layer service management, a digital 8-bit industrial microcontroller core for system monitoring and protocol stack management, a power amplifier with a complete transmit/receive analog front end and on-board programmable filtering capabilities.

It optimally integrates key features such as a dedicated hardware accelerator for 128-bit AES data encryption management, a built-in channel quality estimation function based on signal-to-noise ratio and line impedance measurements, and other key features to increase system performance and functionality, while integrating the entire analog front-end and high-linearity power amplifier block to lower the system BOM and reduce development time.

The high-performance ST7590 utilizes very stable OFDM modulation capabilities up to 128kbps and is fully compatible with PRIME protocol standard specifications. The STarGRID platform also includes the ST758x family, which performs innovative dual-channel communication up to 28.8kbps via n-PSK modulation architecture, and is suitable for implementing various protocols such as the 'Meters & More' standard adopted by the ENEL group for the recently ongoing multi-million dollar ENDESA metering project in Spain.

The STarGRID platform also incorporates the ST7570, which performs S-FSK modulation up to 2.4kbps and integrates a complete turnkey IEC 61334-5-1 compliant protocol stack along with new advanced communication functions, so it can support standard automatic metering services such as street light control and auxiliary metering systems and other command and control applications that require a very cost-effective implementation method and enhanced standard protocol compatibility.

All STarGRID products offer pin-to-pin compatible 7mm x 7mm small footprint QFN48 package options, particularly for development tasks that need to support a variety of applications and standards