More Bluetooth for the new year
06
Jan
2020
To close the year, Renesas uncovered the RX23W group, featuring BT 5.0 with integrated RF and NXP released a powerful 4xCortex-A53+Cortex-M7 roaster of devices while everybody else enjoyed the holiday season. Renesas’ BT is one more set of devices to attack the proverbial IOT market, following Dialog and Nordic’s latest announcements.
Welcome to 2020.
No change.
Infineon is set to announce the closing of the acquisition of Cypress in the next months. The ARM portfolio of Infineon is pretty thin and has little overlap with Cypress’s.
Microchip released 40 D variants of the SAMD21 family. According to the datasheet, this corresponds to the silicon revision G with RWW support in 128kB memory options. There were also a smilar number of DSPIC33CH parts mostly with high temperature range (-40+150C) and new packages (UQFN). Finally, the PIC12/16/24 got automotive grade variants (VAO extension).
No change.
Nuvoton unveiled the NUC29SEE, a base Cortex-M0 core, 2.5V ~ 5.5V and – 40 ℃ ~ +105 ℃ , with support for USB 2.0 FS.
NXP added the i.MX 8M Nano with up to 4 Cortex A53 coupled with a single Cortex-M7. 12 products were launched.
Renesas has just launched the RX23W group to support the Bluetooth 5.0 low energy, long range and mesh networking markets. We found 8 products, and the group uses a RXv2 core running at 54MHz with 1.8V to 3.6V operation and -40 to 85C temperature range.
Flash/RAM sizes go up to 512/64kB with 2 packages so far, QFN56 and BGA85. On the Bluetooth side, it supports one channel BT5.0 (LE 1M PHY, LE 2M PHY, LE Coded PHY 125kbps and 500kbps, LE Advertising Extensions) with integrated RF. There is a dedicated AES-CCM (128-bit) encryption circuit.
Finally, the RX23W embeds a rich portfolio of peripherals:
- 1x USB 2.0 Host/Function/OTG, Full speed (12Mbps), low speed (1.5Mbps), battery charger support
- 1 ch CAN, ISO11898-1 compliant, Max. 1Mbps
- 1 ch SD Host with SD memory/SDIO 1 or 4-bit SD bus support
- Capacitive Touch Sensing with up to 12 keys supported in a 1-terminal 1-key configuration or up to 36 keys in a 12-terminal matrix configuration
- 14 ch 12-bit A/D and 2 ch 12-bit D/A converters
- Trusted Secure IP Lite (AES/TRNG)
In the EFM32 family, 63 EFM32LG parts moved to a new revision or a new nomenclature. The documentation (datasheet) is inconsistent with the part names, e.g. EFM32LG230F128G-QFN64 part number vs. a pattern of EFM32LG230F128G-F-QFN64
Finally, 3 new parts were added to the EFM32GG12 family, they are 125C, BGA112 variants of existing parts.
On the wireless side, the following family were removed from the user’s path (i.e. a user can only access them if they perform a search), maybe a fluke on the website:
- EFR32BG14
- EFR32MG1B
- EFR32MG1P
- EFR32MG1V
EFR32MG14 is being phased out to EFR32MG13 for battery powered Zigbee or Thread apps, EFR32MG12 for Zigbee, Thread and multiprotocol applications and EFR32MG21 for mains powered mesh applications including lighting, gateways and voice assistants.
No significant change.
ST disclosed a few variants of existing parts.
No significant change.
late bloom
02
Dec
2019
New wireless devices bloomed late this year with both Dialog and Nordic semis releasing BT5.1 compatible devices either on the lower end (DA14531) or with all the bells and whistles (nRF52833 with direction finding). Interestingly, NXP “followed” the lead of Microchip this month with additional parts in the ARM9-based i.MX28 family. Back to the future?
Dialog just released the SmartBond Tiny (DA14531) with BT5.1 support, based on a 16 MHz Cortex-M0+ core. It only requires 6 external passives a crystal and a power source (1.1 to 3.3V). It is available in WLCSP17 or FCGQFN24.
No change.
Microchip added 149 variant of existing parts. The ATSAML1x (20+ of them) got extended temperature (-40 to +125), 32 dsPIC33CH got -H revisions, while the ATSAMDA1E added 14 variants with new Flash sizes. Finally, a number of VAO (Automotive grade) parts made it out in the following families: PIC12, PIC16 PIC32, ATTiny16 and ATTiny 8.
It had been a while since Nordic released a new product, and this time the nRF52833 is a general-purpose multiprotocol SoC with a Bluetooth 5.1 Direction Finding capable radio, qualified for -40°C to 105°C. It is the 5th addition to the nRF52 Series and is built around a 64 MHz Arm Cortex-M4 with FPU, and has 512kB flash and 128kB RAM. A 1:4 RAM to Flash ratio and +8 dBm output power make the nRF52833 suitable for advanced wearables or smart home applications where robust coverage is important.
It includes a range of analog and digital interfaces such as NFC-A, ADC, Full-speed 12 Mbps USB 2.0, High-speed 32 MHz SPI, UART/SPI/TWI, PWM, I2S and PDM, and has a 1.7 V to 5.5 V supply voltage range, which enables powering the device from rechargeable batteries or over USB. The two-stage LDO regulator and a DC-DC converter, together with the automated power management system help deliver low power numbers even in more advanced applications.
No change.
NXP added more low-end parts to the K32 L2 MCU family. It is based on a low-leakage Cortex-M0+ core with options scaling from 64 KB to 512 KB Flash and from 32 kB to 128 kB SRAM. The new devices (K32L2B11 and K32L2B21) extend the portfolio toward the low-end with 64 and 128 kB of Flash. Of interest is the release of additional ARM9 based i.MX28.
What’s up with the ARM9 renewed interest?
Renesas added 77 new variants of the RX71M and the RX64M, with a few new RX24T part numbers.
Renesas also unveiled the RL78/G13A a replacement for the G13, with much lower operating current (47μA/MHz: over 40% reduction from RL78/G13). They also support extended temperature range (105C). The 16 new parts are still under development.
No change this month.
Cypress added a BGA package to the PSoC6 (CY8C63xxBZI).
ST disclosed a few variants of existing parts, the bulk of it with an UFQFPN package and 85C max temperature.
No significant change.
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