Wi-Sun
For Wi-Sun (which is wireless smart utility network), and proprietary sub-GHz protocols, in cities and other built-up environments, it announced an RF microcontroller and matching RF power amplifier.
The MCU, FG25, is built around an Arm Cortex-M33 processor “with the most internal memory of any SoC in Silicon Labs’ portfolio”, according to the company. “This memory, combined with Wi-SUN Field Area Network (FAN) Border Router 1.1, enables FG25 deployments to scale to hundreds of thousands of nodes.”
SiLab’s Wi-Sun stack
The EFF01 RF front-end module doubles the effective range of FG25, with SiLabs claiming “minimal data loss up to 3km in dense urban environments”.
Together, use is foreseen in streetlights, cameras, weather stations, utility metering and utility transmission.
The parts are sampling now, with MCU general availability scheduled for Q4 2022, and the RF amplfier in Q2 2023.
Low-power Wi-Fi 6
At the same time, the company announced SiWx917, a Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth LE combination IC which is Matter-ready and aimed at battery-powered devices with always-on cloud connections.
It has the company’s dual-core quad-thread ThreadArch processor, aquired when Silicon Labs bought Redpine, and a Cortex-M4F user application processor.
Also on-die in the 7 x 7mm package is sram, flash, an AI/ML accelerator, a PSA Level 2 certifiable security engine and power management. It is designed to have “enough memory to run wireless stacks and applications, and ultra-low current consumption for long battery life”, said the company.
SiWx917 is also sampling, with general availability anticipated in early Q3 2023.
Amazon Sidewalk development
‘Pro Kit for Amazon Sidewalk’ has wireless hardware for all Amazon Sidewalk protocols, including Bluetooth Low Energy, sub-GHz FSK and CSS, as well as software development kits and security.
It comes pre-flashed with a software image and AWS pre-registration.
SiLabs’ Simplicity Studio IDE (integrated development environment) will guide “developers through the entire Amazon Sidewalk journey from start to certifying finalised code”, it claims, adding: “While anyone can develop an Sidewalk device, Amazon Sidewalk connectivity is currently only available to end consumers and endpoint devices in the US.”
Once again the kit is sampling already, but will only be generally available later – H2 2023 is the plan.
