Silicon Labs SiWG917Y and SiWN917Y are ultra-low power WiFi 6 and Bluetooth LE 5.4 IoT modules

Silicon Labs SiWG917Y and SiWN917Y are pre-certified, ultra-low power 2.4 GHz WiFi 6 and Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) 5.4 modules made as an extension of the Wireless Gecko Series 2 Arm Cortex-M33 microcontroller family and designed for IoT applications such as Smart Home devices, building automation solutions, healthcare devices, industrial sensors, and asset trackers.

The SiWG917Y module is used as a standalone solution where all application code runs on an Arm Cortex-M4 core, and the SiWN917Y module is designed as a Network Co-processor so customers can execute their application on a separate MCU while the wireless module manages WiFi 6 and BLE 5.4.

Silicon Labs SiWx917Y modules specifications:

Microcontroller
- MCU
  - Arm Cortex-M4F application core up to 180 MHz (225 DMIPS performance)
  - Arm Cortex-Mnetwork wireless processor running up to 160 MHz,
- Accelerators – Integrated FPU, MPU, NVIC, Matrix vector processor (MVP)
- Memory
  - 672 KB embedded SRAM shared by Cortex-M4 and network wireless processor
  - Up to 2 MB embedded PSRAM
- Storage – Up to 8 MB embedded Flash
- Storage I/F – QSPI controllers for up to 16MB PSRAM and up to 16MB flash
- Debugging – SWD and JTAG debug options
- Misc
  - Internal and external oscillators with PLLs
  - Flash In-Application Programming (IAP), In-System Programming (ISP) and Over-the-Air Wireless Firmware Upgrade
  - Power on reset (POR) Brown-Out and Black-Out Detect (BOD) with separate thresholds
Wi-Fi 6
- 2.4 GHz 802.11 b/g/n/ax, 20 MHz channel
- Frequency: 2412 MHz – 2484 MHz
- Bandwidth up to 86 Mbps (802.11ax MCS0-MCS7)
- 802.11ax 20 MHz non-AP STA mandatory features and optional features:
  - Individual Target Wakeup Time (iTWT)
  - Broadcast TWT (bTWT)
  - Intra PPDU power save
  - SU extended range (ER)
  - DL MU-MIMO, BFRP, NDP feedback up to 4 antennas
- Tx Power – Up to +17 dBm with integrated PA
- Rx sensitivity – -96 dBm
- Integrated Wi-Fi stack, TCP/IP stack, Bluetooth stack supporting wireless coexistence and Matter
Bluetooth Low Energy 5.4
- Bluetooth LE 1Mbps, 2Mbps, LR (125Kbps, 500Kbps) data rates
- 8 Peripheral and 2 Central connections
- LR duty cycling
- Tx Power – Up to +16.5 dBm with integrated PA
Wireless Certifications
- Wi-Fi Alliance, Bluetooth SIG
- USA (FCC), Canada (IC/ISED), MIC (Japan), etc. Compliance with the relevant EN standards including EN 300 328 v2.2.2 for conformity with the directives and regulations in the EU (CE) and UK (UKCA)
Peripherals
- Analog
  - 12-bit 16-ch, 2.5 Msps ADC; 10-bit DAC
  - 3x Op-amps 2x Comparators
  - IR detector and Temp Sensor
- SDIO 2.0 Secondary
- 1x USART, 2x UART, 4x SPI, 3x I2C, 2x I2S
- Timers – 4 x 16/32-bit, 1 x 24-bit, WDT, RTC
- Up to 43x GPIOs with GPIO multiplexer
Security
- WPA2 (Personal/Enterprise), WPA3 (Personal), TLS1.3
- Secure Boot/OTA, PUF, TRNG, Secure Zone Key Storage, Debug Lock, Anti Rollback, Encrypted XiP, Secure Attestation
- HW Accelerators: AES-128/256, SHA-256/384/512, HMAC, RSA, ECC, ECDH, RNG, CRC, SHA-3, AES-GCM / CMAC, ChaCha-poly, TRNG
Supply Voltage – 1.65 V to 3.63 V
Dimensions – 21.1 x 16 x 2.3 mm
Temperature Range – -40°C to +85°C

Silicon Labs SiWx917Y RF Pin or antenna configurations — Two antenna configurations: RF pin and built-in antenna

The module is offered with either an integrated antenna or an RF pin to connect an external antenna. The specs above don’t have power consumption numbers, but Silicon Labs claims the module consumes as little as 20μA in sleep mode with Target Wake Time (TWT) and 60-second keep-alive interval. This makes the SiWx917Y modules suitable for battery-operated IoT devices like smart locks, thermostats, smart cameras, video doorbells, and industrial sensors and allows multi-year battery life.

Firmware development can be done with Simplicity Studio v5 unified development platform or Microsoft VS Code. I could not find any evaluation platform for the new modules. Silicon Labs says the SiWx917Y modules are now generally available for purchase. Additional details may be found on the product page and the press release.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.