Low-Power Bluetooth SoCs For IoT Applications

Looking for a Bluetooth solution for your IoT project? These new chips offer lower power and cost without sacrificing key features.

Silicon Labs has introduced new “Lite” versions of its BG22 and BG24 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) system-on-chips (SoCs), the BG22L and BG24L. These variants offer familiar features with “application-optimized” designs that reduce power consumption and cost. It suits companies and developers in the Internet of Things (IoT) sector who need cost-effective, low-power Bluetooth solutions.

The BG22L, designed to complement the BG22, features an Arm Cortex-M33F core running up to 38.4MHz with DSP and floating-point hardware, offering up to 24kB of SRAM and 352kB of flash. It also includes a Bluetooth 5.4 Low Energy (BLE) radio. This is a step down from the BG22, which has a 76.8MHz core, up to 32kB of SRAM, and up to 512kB of flash.

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The BG24L, the “Lite” version of the BG24, uses a Cortex-M33F core running up to 78MHz, with up to 96kB of SRAM and 768kB of flash. It supports machine learning and AI workloads with built-in accelerators. Compared to the standard BG24, which offers up to 256kB of SRAM and 1,536kB of flash, the BG24L has less memory. It also supports Bluetooth Channel Sounding, a Bluetooth 6.0 feature that the BG22L lacks.

The main difference between the L-suffix and standard models is security: both include SiLabs’ Secure Vault Mid security subsystem, but they lack the hardware cryptographic acceleration engines in the higher-priced versions. The BG22L also has fewer GPIO pins, reducing from 26 to 18, while the BG24L keeps all 26 pins.

“We know that our customers are always looking for ways to keep pace with the demands of the evolving IoT [Internet of Things] market while reducing costs,” claims SiLabs’ Ross Sabolcik of the company’s latest hardware announcement. “The BG22L and BG24L expand our portfolio to match those customer needs and concerns by providing an optimized set of industry-leading Bluetooth features with our signature IoT capabilities like high RF sensitivity, low power, robust security, and powerful compute.”