At this year’s Bluetooth Asia event, imec is demonstrating a new ultralow-power radio for IoT applications with Arm. The radio combines imec’s latest transceiver frontend, operating from a nominal supply as low as 0.8V, with Arm’s qualified and silicon-proven Cordio Bluetooth low energy 5 digital baseband. Designed for IoT applications demanding very low power consumption, such as leave-behind sensors or wearables, the solution demonstrates industry compatibility of these novel, highly energy-efficient radios.
 
The digital transformation that is currently happening at all levels of our society, is urging the need for specialty radios that have an extremely low power consumption. These will be used in battery-powered IoT devices such as leave-behind sensors in infrastructure, smart wearables or even implantables. Reducing power consumption and enabling operation at low supply voltages is key to extend lifetime of these devices, operating from low cost, single cell or even printed batteries.
 
While designed to be used in next generation Bluetooth and IEEE 802.15.4 products, imec’s frontend components combine an unparalleled low power consumption, low cost and high performance. High energy efficiency and low supply voltage operation at 0.8V is achieved, while maintaining similar RX sensitivity as best-in-class products.
 
For wearable or implantable devices, where the antenna impedance can vary due to changes in a device’s position or surroundings, imec has developed a sub-mW on-chip impedance detection technique that further improves receiver sensitivity and transmitter efficiency.
 
“Arm’s IP provides the foundation for a secure, connected IoT. By demonstrating interoperability with our solution, we’re further proving our ability to design bleeding-edge innovations compatible with cost-effective, robust industry solutions,” says Kathleen Philips, program director IoT at imec.