Bluetooth Smart controller supports Bluetooth 4.1

Suitable for ultra-low power wireless sensing, remote control and monitoring applications, the controller operates on as little as 0.8V. It can be powered by a wide range of common single-cell batteries or energy harvesters such as solar cells, piezo-electric or electro-magnetic elements. The EM9301 supports both BLE MASTER and SLAVE roles as defined in Bluetooth specification V4.1, and combines the PHY, link layer and host controller interface layer in one low cost chip. When paired with a low-power host controller, it enables cost, performance and size-optimised solutions for most Bluetooth Smart applications.

Bluetooth Smart is the wireless connectivity technology of choice for IoT, wearable and M2M applications. Due to the wide range of requirements for these applications, an optimised solution requires flexibility in MCU selection to allow for different processors, memory types and sizes, specialised peripheral blocks such as floating point processors, data converters, timers, analogue and digital interfaces and power management functions. The EM9301 offers users a flexible, modular and low-cost way to add Bluetooth 4.1 connectivity to their products, allowing them to preserve their legacy MCU choice and leverage their software investment while adding wireless connectivity.

“The controller’s ‘companion chip’ approach allows it to address simple Bluetooth applications such as our EMBC0x beacons, which are powered by a low power embedded 8-bit MCU to achieve a very low bill-of-materials” said Michel Willemin, CEO, EM Microelectronic Marin. The EM9301 is also a perfect Bluetooth Smart solution for smart watches based on legacy or custom watch MCU’s and in wearable devices, where they complement the sophisticated MCUs or dedicated ASIC processors that are utilised for healthcare signal processing”.

EM Microelectronic will be demonstrating the EM9301, its Bluetooth Smart beacons, SENTRAL sensor fusion, energy harvesting solutions and other low power EM products at the SENSORS EXPO, which takes place from 9^th to 11^th June in Long Beach, CA. The company will be situated at booth 644. At the event EM will also be presenting information on energy harvesting, Bluetooth and the IoT.

The Bluetooth Smart controller is in production and is available in both a die format and a ROHS-compliant MLF-24 package. Purchase includes a license-free Bluetooth Smart stack for 8051 or ARM Cortex M0/M3 cores. Development kits for numerous MCUs are also available.