Rohm Group’s Lapis Semiconductor Gets Attention with Demo of the Flying “Lazurite” Microcomputer Designed to Accelerate IoT Device and Systems Development

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Rohm Group’s Lapis Semiconductor Gets Attention with Demo of the Flying “Lazurite” Microcomputer Designed to Accelerate IoT Device and Systems Development

Rohm Group’s Lapis Semiconductor won this year’s CEATEC Innovation Awards “As Selected by U.S. Journalists” in the Electronic Components category.

Speeding up development with Raspberry Pi compatible boards

This award-winning “flying paper crane” with the microcomputer built in can fly for 5 minutes, but only weighs a mere 31 grams. This device has been achieved using the “Lazurite” microcomputer board developed by Lapis.

Being compatible with the Arduino and ultra-compact Raspberry Pi microcomputers popular with electronic hobbyists and enthusiasts, “Lazurite” is a super-low-power microcomputer board (90% lower than Arduino on standby) that supports communications in the 920MHz band (Sub-GHz specified low-power radio). With plans to release all sorts of sensors for this technology such as accelerometer, gyroscope, thermometer, humidity, human feeling, color and UV sensors in December 2015, this product has the latent potential to drive an explosion of IoT system developments.

This flying paper crane features the Lazurite board with the communications functions as well as the ultra-compact, ultra-light “Lazurite Fly” microcomputer board. Astonishingly, with all parts included such as the controls for flying, radio, chip antenna and motor driver, this board weighs in at less than 3 grams. The graceful flying of this device was introduced to many media organizations from Japan and overseas.

The flying paper crane was one of the most popular demonstrations at the venue. Rohm did a great job of appealing to the compactness, lightweight and high functionality of the module.