embedded world Product Showcase: The Sonata-One from lowRISC

March 03, 2025

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Reliability, flexibility, and security are some of the many demanding requirements of today’s embedded, IoT, and operational technology applications. But it’s often difficult to acquire all of these capabilities in one solution that also integrates seamlessly into existing systems.

Designed for enhanced security, efficient IoT, and scalable software is the Sonata microcontroller solution from lowRISC. The system is for evaluating the usage of the CHERIoT Ibex core, which is what the Sonata Core, an open-source 32-bit RISC-V CPU core, is based on. Additionally, the Sonata-One can be used on FPGAs, specifically the Sonata FPGA board, but can be run on any similar system since it is open-source.

The Sonata-One in Action

The Sonata-One, also known as NAE-SONATA-ONE, is available as a development kit called the Sonata Board, which features most of the system’s components and expansion ports. The kit is made to help engineers test the security and use of CHERIoT Ibex core as a microcontroller and is designed for use on an FPGA.

The CHERIoT Ibex core, or Sonata Core, is the central processing core of the Sonata-One system. It leverages the RISC-V architecture with the Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions (CHERI) framework for security.

Since the Sonata-One system is implemented on top of an open-source FPGA, it promotes modifications and customization to its core and/or peripherals such as I²C, SPI, GPIO, USB, and UART. The number of UART, SPI, and I2C instances can be changed.

 Hardware IP blocks:

• I2C for QWIIC
• SPI for the color LCD screen and Ethernet
• GPIO for buttons and LEDs
• HyperRAM controller

Interfaces and peripherals include: Ethernet, RS-232 and RS-485 (for industrial application concepts), MicroSD, and ADC integrated into the board. The Sonata-One system also includes expansion headers: Raspberry Pi, Arduino shield, microBUS Click, Sparkfun QWIIC, PMOD, and a 30-pin R/A header.

For memory, the Sonata System supports 8MB HyperRAM, external flash, and internal SRAM (on-chip memory). The solution also supports an SD card slot for edge computing data storage applications.

Getting Started with the Sonata-One

The Sonata-One features an SDK, examples, and debuggers. The debug module supports the RISC-V debug specification and CHERIoT.

Additional Resources:

• Product Page: https://lowrisc.org/news/unveiling-sonata-affordable-cheri-hardware-for-embedded-systems/
• Datasheet: https://media.newae.com/datasheets/NAE-SONATA-ONE_datasheet.pdf
• Github: https://lowrisc.github.io/sonata-system/doc/architecture/board.html