Azure Sphere Preview
A solution for creating highly secured, connected MCU-powered devices to help you reimagine your business, drive innovation, and delight customers.
Get ready for the MCU IoT revolution
Azure Sphere is a solution for creating highly-secured, connected Microcontroller (MCU) devices, providing you with the confidence and the power to reimagine your business and create the future.
Find peace of mind
Security is foundational to connected IoT experiences. Don't trust your brand to single line-of-defense and second-best solutions. The Azure Sphere approach to security is based on years of Microsoft experience and research. Together, Azure Sphere promotes security with crossover MCUs, our secured OS, and turnkey cloud security service, guarding every Azure Sphere device and delivering end-to-end IoT security that responds to emerging threats—so you don't have to.
Get to market faster
Streamline the development and maintenance of your products. Azure Sphere is designed for efficiency and comes with a set of Visual Studio tools that will completely change how you create and manage MCU powered experiences. Azure Sphere is designed to connect quickly and easily to Azure, but our open approach means that you're able to use Azure Sphere alongside the public or private cloud of your choice.
Create the future
IoT is no longer science fiction. Azure Sphere brings the promise of a secured connected future to MCU devices everywhere. Azure Sphere MCUs deliver unmatched computing power and built-in connectivity that pave the way for next generation experiences. Azure Sphere enables you to reimagine everything from business models to product experiences. Delight customers with intelligent products that predict and respond to their needs.
"Azure Sphere is the most significant push by a large technology vendor to holistically improve IoT security…"
Meet the newest class of microcontrollers, plus the OS and cloud technologies that secure them
Azure Sphere brings together the best of Microsoft’s expertise in cloud, software, and device technology to provide a unique approach to security that starts in the silicon and extends to the cloud. Together, Azure Sphere MCUs, the Azure Sphere OS, and the Azure Sphere Security Service provide you with the confidence to reimagine your business and the tools to create the future.
Secured MCU
Secured from the silicon up. Our new crossover class of MCUs now combines both real-time and application processors with built-in Microsoft security technology and connectivity.
Secured OS
An OS purpose built for security and agility to create a trustworthy platform for new IoT experiences. Our secured OS builds security innovations pioneered in Windows into an HLOS small enough for MCUs.
Cloud security
Protect devices with a cloud built for IoT security. The Azure Sphere Security Service renews device security, identifies emerging threats, and brokers trust among device, cloud, and other endpoints.
Read more about the secure platform:
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Secured MCU
Azure Sphere MCUs: A new crossover class of MCU with built-in Microsoft security technology, connectivity, and the headroom to support dynamic new experiences.
The Pluton security subsystem creates a hardware root of trust, stores private keys, and executes complex cryptographic operations.
A new crossover MCU combines the versatility and power of a Cortex-A class processor with the low overhead and real-time guarantees of a Cortex-M class processor.
Built-in network connectivity provides secured, reliable, online experiences and ensures devices are up to date.
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Secured OS
The Azure Sphere OS: A highly-secured OS from Microsoft that creates a trustworthy defense-in-depth platform for new IoT experiences.
Secured application containers compartmentalize code for agility, robustness, and security.
On-chip connectivity services secure your connection to the cloud and provide access to the Azure Sphere Security Service.
A custom Linux kernel enables silicon diversity and innovation.
A security monitor guards integrity and access to critical resources.
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Cloud security
The Azure Sphere Security Service: A turnkey security service that guards every Azure Sphere device by renewing security, identifying emerging threats, and brokering trust among device, cloud, and other endpoints.
Protects your devices and customers with certificate-based authentication of all communication.
Guarantees a device’s authenticity and ensures it runs only your genuine software.
Provides insight into device and application failures and visibility into emerging security threats.
Responds to threats with automated updates of the Azure Sphere OS.
Allows for easy deployment of your software updates to your Azure Sphere powered devices.
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Modernize your MCU development experience with Visual Studio
Install the Visual Studio Tools for Azure Sphere to get started writing applications. These tools include application templates, development tools, and the Azure Sphere software development kit (SDK).
- Simplify and accelerate development
- Streamline debugging
- Modernize your development experience
Connect your Azure Sphere devices quickly and easily to Azure IoT
A simple Visual Studio wizard guides you through the process of connecting your device to Azure IoT Hub and adds the code you need directly into your application.
- Easily connect your devices to Azure
- Send telemetry from your device to the cloud
- Enable device-to-cloud and cloud-to-device messaging
Secured devices
Your cloud, your choice
Here’s what Azure Sphere customers and partners are saying
"Sub-Zero and Wolf have had a legacy of innovation in food preservation and preparation for over 70 years and we see significant opportunity in the connected devices market to create new and unique customer experiences. As our homes become more connected, we place significant value on the security of connected devices, so we can focus on continuing to deliver an exceptional customer experience. Microsoft's approach with Azure Sphere is unique in that it addresses security holistically at every layer."
"Glen Dimplex is a leader in development of intelligent heating, renewable energy solutions and domestic appliances. We recognize that addressing security at every layer of connected devices is critical to shipping connected devices with confidence. The work Microsoft is doing with Azure Sphere uniquely addresses the security challenges of the connected microcontrollers shipping in billions of devices every year. We look forward to integrating Azure Sphere into our product lines later this year."
"Kongsberg is a technology group building high end mission critical systems with extreme performance for extreme conditions, both for defence and civilian applications. The group has long traditions within the field of autonomy providing complete autonomous systems such as autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and recently the world's first autonomous, fully electric container ship. Security and safety is crucial for KONGSBERG when designing autonomous systems, and with increasing cyber threats this topic has become ever more important. Microsoft's Azure Sphere technology is in line with our philosophy, as it builds security at the core of the design. KONGSBERG is excited to see how the Azure Sphere solution can potentially play an important role in future products."
"Thanks to an unique architectural performance using Microsoft's secure Azure Sphere microchip LEONI and Microsoft together can also provide essential elements to the continuous improvement of digital functional models of cable systems as well as the active control of interfaces, making data end energy transfer of today's applications intelligent and secure."
Our silicon ecosystem
The first Azure Sphere chip will be the MediaTek MT3620, which represents years of close collaboration and testing between MediaTek and Microsoft. Other early partners include Arm, who worked closely with us to incorporate their Cortex-A application processors into Azure Sphere MCUs.
We’re also working closely with leading silicon manufacturers to create a broad ecosystem of vendors who can use their expertise to design specialized chips for various markets. Here are some of the partners who are actively engaged with us to deliver Azure Sphere MCUs along with other partners in the Azure Sphere ecosystem.
Azure Sphere in the news
Infoworld
Inside Microsoft Azure Sphere hardware for secure IoT
As more and more smart devices are deployed, securing and managing them becomes more and more important…
Continue readingForbes
Azure Sphere—Microsoft's Ambitious Plan To Own The Next-Generation IoT Devices
After ruling the OS market for decades with Windows, Microsoft now wants to own the computing platform that powers the next generation of IoT devices…
Continue readingInternet of Things Podcast
A deep dive into Microsoft's IoT security platform
This week's show is all about Microsoft's new IoT security product, Azure Sphere…
Continue readingA key part of the Azure IoT portfolio
The Azure Sphere solution plays a key role in the Azure IoT portfolio to ensure end-to-end device security for MCU powered devices. Enabling secure connectivity for these devices also opens you to the broader benefits of Azure IoT solutions, platform services and industry-leading edge technologies that allow you to easily create, customize and control all aspects of an IoT solution. Seamlessly deploy and run serverless computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning directly on cross-platform IoT devices. See how Azure IoT can help you learn more, and do more, with smarter and secured devices at the edge.
Related products and services
Azure IoT Hub
Connect, monitor and manage billions of IoT assets
Azure IoT Edge
Extend cloud intelligence and analytics to edge devices
Azure IoT Central
Experience the simplicity of SaaS for IoT, with no cloud expertise required
Contact Us
Talk to a Microsoft representative to get started.
Order a development kit
Everything you need to get started prototyping and developing Azure Sphere applications.
Get started
See how to get started with Azure Sphere