silicon labs

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Tiny Silicon Labs BG29 Bluetooth LE SoC measures just 2.8 x 2.6mm for wearables and sensors

Tiny Silicon Labs BG29 Bluetooth LE SoC measures just 2.8 x 2.6mm for wearables and sensors

Silicon Labs BG29 vs coin cell battery

Yesterday, we wrote about the world’s smallest microcontroller (TI MSPM0C1104), which measures just 1.38mm2 in its smallest package. However, it is designed for general-purpose applications without built-in wireless connectivity. If you need Bluetooth LE in a tiny form factor, Silicon Labs BG29 wireless SoC, with a 2.8x 2.6mm package, is worth a look. The BG29 features a Cortex-M33 core clocked at up to 76.8 MHz, up to 256KB SRAM, up to 1MB flash, various digital and analog peripherals, and security features that make it suitable for Bluetooth LE applications such as wearable health and medical devices, asset trackers, and battery-powered sensors. Silicon Labs BG29 (EFR32BG29) specifications: CPU core – Arm Cortex-M33 @ 76.8 MHz with DSP instruction and floating-point unit Memory – Up to 256 kB RAM data memory Storage – Up to 1 MB flash program memory Wireless – 2.4 GHz radio Protocols – Bluetooth 5.4 Low Energy (LE) […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Silicon Labs MG26 development kits and SoCs are now available for Matter and multiprotocol Smart Home applications

Silicon Labs MG26 development kits and SoCs are now available for Matter and multiprotocol Smart Home applications

xG26 PK6028A MG26 development kit

Silicon Labs MG26 is a new family of Arm Cortex-M33 wireless SoCs designed for Matter or multiprotocol Smart Home applications that provide an update to the MG24 with more memory and storage, additional GPIO, a 4×40 LCD controller, and an integrated AI/ML accelerator. We first covered the new wireless microcontroller family in April 2024, but the company has now published a new press release announcing the general availability of the MG26 microcontrollers, and I also noticed some development kits were now available, so we’ll check those out in this post. Silicon Labs MG26 specifications A reminder of the SoC specifications with highlights in bold showing the improvements or differences against the MG24 family: MCU core – Arm Cortex-M33 @ 78.0 MHz with DSP instruction and floating-point unit Memory – Up to 512 kB RAM data memory Storage – Up to 3200 kB flash program memory AI/ML accelerator – Matrix Vector […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Silicon Labs unveils low-cost BG22L BLE 5.4 and BG24L BLE 6.0 SoCs

Silicon Labs unveils low-cost BG22L BLE 5.4 and BG24L BLE 6.0 SoCs

Silicon Labs BG24L BG22L

Silicon Labs has unveiled the BG22L and BG24L SoCs for low-cost, ultra-low-power Bluetooth LE connectivity. These are Lite versions of the company’s BG22 and BG24 SoC families introduced in 2020 and 2022 respectively. The 38.4 MHz Silabs BG22L Arm Cortex-M33 SoC targets high-volume, cost-sensitive Bluetooth 5.4 applications like asset tracking tags and small appliances. In comparison, the 78 MHz BG24L Cortex-M33 SoC offers an affordable entry-level solution with AI/ML acceleration and Bluetooth 6.0 Channel Sounding to locate items or implement access control in crowded areas such as warehouses and multi-family housing. Since the specs for the BG22L and BG24L are similar to the ones for the BG22 and BG24 chips I won’t reproduce those here, and instead highlights the main features and cost-saving measures. Silicon Labs BG22L Bluetooth LE 5.4 SoC Silicon Labs BG22L highlights: MCU – Arm Cortex-M33 @ 38.4 MHz with DSP and FPU (BG22 is clocked at […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on Silicon Labs SiWG917Y and SiWN917Y are ultra-low power WiFi 6 and Bluetooth LE 5.4 IoT modules

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

Silicon Labs SiWG917Y SiWN917Y module

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-M4 network 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 […]

Posted on by Debashis Das - 2 Comments on Arduino Nano Matter powered gamepad runs Quake at 27 FPS

Arduino Nano Matter powered gamepad runs Quake at 27 FPS

Arduino Nano Matter gamepad board

Silicon Labs Solutions architect Nicola Wrachien has designed an Arduino Nano Matter gamepad for which he was successfully able to port Quake, a popular first-person shooter game. We have seen developers and engineers port doom on everything from toothbrushes to GPS receivers. Wrachien was previously able to port Doom on a Sparkfun Thing Plus Matter MGM240P at Silicon Labs’ 30th-anniversary celebration. But to make things more interesting and challenging he wanted to see if Quake could be run on the same MGM240SD22VNA MCU, and he succeeded. In the end, he could not only run the game, but he also implemented improved graphics (better than Doom), better physics, 3D rendering, and much more. This gamepad is built around an Arduino Nano Matter board which features MGM240SD22VNA MCU from Silicon Labs, along with 256KB of RAM, which is very low compared to Quake’s original system requirements which is a minimum of 8MB […]

Posted on by Paisit Wongsongsarn - 7 Comments on Mixtile Edge 2 Kit review with Home Assistant, 2-in-1 Zigbee & Z-Wave mPCIe module

Mixtile Edge 2 Kit review with Home Assistant, 2-in-1 Zigbee & Z-Wave mPCIe module

Mixtile Edge2 Kit Review with Home Assistant

We received the Edge 2 Kit IoT gateway on the Rockchip RK3568-powered Edge2 single board computer (SBC) and a 2-in-1 Zigbee and Z-Wave mPCIe card from Mixtile which we will be reviewing from the perspective of smart home applications using Home Assistant open-source home automation framework. Let’s dive into the details. Unboxing Mixtile Edge 2 Kit CNX Software previously reported on the Mixtile Edge 2 Kit in 2022 and you can check the detailed specifications and block diagram in that earlier article. Since then, Mixtile has found a wider range of applications for the device and is also promoting it as an Edge AI Box that performs AI object detection using the Edge 2 Kit (or the more powerful Mixtile Blade 3) using the built-in NPU (Neural Processing Unit) with up to 1 TOPS of AI performance for tasks such as object detection. Let’s unbox it and take a closer […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Silicon Labs BG22E, MG22E, FG22E wireless MCUs target energy harvesting, battery-free IoT devices

Silicon Labs BG22E, MG22E, FG22E wireless MCUs target energy harvesting, battery-free IoT devices

BG22E MG22E FG22E energy harvesting wireless microcontroller

Silicon Labs xG22E is a family of wireless SoCs consisting of the BG22E, MG22E, and FG22E and designed to operate within an ultra-low power envelope required for battery-free, energy harvesting applications such as electronic shelf labels, Smart Home sensors, remote controls, and so on. Like the just-announced Silicon Labs MG26, BG26, and PG26, the new xG22E family features a Cortex-M33 core clocked up to 76.8MHz. As an evolution of the low-power BG22, the BG22E offers Bluetooth 5.4 LE connectivity with “Energy Conservation” to further enhance battery longevity and even support designs that eliminate the need for batteries. The MG22E is similar but embeds an 802.15.4 radio for Zigbee connectivity, and the FG22E provides a 2.4GHz proprietary plus the Cortex-M33 is clocked up to 38.4MHz. Silicon Labs BG22E, MG22E, FG22E specifications: MCU – Arm Cortex-M33 @ 76.8 MHz with DSP and FPU (38.4 MHz for FG22E) Memory – Up to 32 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Silicon Labs MG26, BG26, and PG26 Cortex-M33 AI microcontrollers offer up to 3200KB flash, 512KB RAM, 64 GPIO’s

Silicon Labs MG26, BG26, and PG26 Cortex-M33 AI microcontrollers offer up to 3200KB flash, 512KB RAM, 64 GPIO’s

Silicon Labs MG26 BG26 P26 Cortex M33 microcontrollers

Silicon Labs has announced the xG26 family of Cortex-M33 wireless SoCs and MCUs that consists of the multiprotocol MG26 SoC, the Bluetooth LE BG26 SoC, and the PG26 general-purpose MCU without wireless connectivity, and features double the flash and RAM of the Silicon Labs xG24 devices. The xG26 family also comes with double the number of general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins as the xG24 to enable engineers to build more complex devices in combination with the larger flash and memory reaching up to 3200 KB and 512KB respectively and also integrates a Matrix Vector Processor (MVP) for AI/ML hardware acceleration and Math functions. Silicon Labs MG26 and BG26 wireless SoCs MG26 and BG26 key features and specifications: MCU core – Arm Cortex-M33 @ 78 MHz AI/ML accelerator – Matrix Vector Processor that is 8x faster and 6x lower power than Cortex-M33 processing, and supports an MVP Math Library for non-ML workloads […]

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