Simpler energy profiling for power-sensitive IoT applications

Battery-powered IoT applications, such as wearables, personal medical devices, wireless sensor nodes, and gas and water meters, require exceptional energy efficiency for extended battery life. Extrapolating system-level energy consumption and battery life expectations from MCU and wireless IC datasheets is both challenging and time-consuming. Silicon Labs’ Energy Profiler helps developers optimise their IoT designs for ultra-low energy and long battery life by providing a more intuitive UI, improved usability, and greater energy profiling accuracy and reliability.

The Energy Profiler tool offers an Energy Score feature that is unique to the embedded industry, enabling developers to benchmark the energy efficiency of their IoT system designs. The Energy Score helps developers determine which design iteration provides the highest score directly correlated to battery life. A higher score (on a 0 to 10 scale) indicates lower energy consumption and longer battery life. The Energy Profiler also allows developers to save sessions, enabling them to compare relevant data from their saved sessions to gain a better understanding of how design modifications impact overall energy efficiency.

The Energy Profiler features an enhanced energy graphing capability that has the familiar look and feel of an oscilloscope. The developer can now zoom in on the X (time) and Y (power) axes of the energy graph to analyse the details of energy consumption with greater precision. In addition, the profiler provides a direct correlation between the energy graph, function analyser and application code. This three-way correlation capability enhances the developer’s ability to optimise designs for ultra-low energy consumption.

Silicon Labs improved the efficiency of downloading and using Simplicity Studio to help developers get their projects up and running faster and more efficiently. The size of the Simplicity Studio installation package has been reduced by a factor of ten, enabling developers to visit Silicon Labs’ website, download Simplicity Studio and run a demo in less than ten minutes. In addition, the most frequent tasks in Simplicity Studio, such as software examples and demos, now run up to three times faster than they did in the previous version

The Simplicity Studio platform simplifies the process of developing IoT applications by providing MCU and wireless developers with one-click access to everything they need to complete their projects, from initial concept to final product, in a unified software environment. Simplicity Studio includes an Eclipse-based IDE, graphical configuration tools, energy profiling and battery estimation tools, network analysis tools, demos, software examples, documentation, technical support and community forums. All of these integrated features combine to make embedded development simple and productive for IoT developers. Simplicity Studio provides built-in intelligence to automatically detect the connected 8-bit or 32-bit MCU or wireless IC, graphically configure the device, and show supported configuration options to help developers get their projects up and running in minutes.

“Today’s developers not only require ‘faster, smaller, cheaper’ silicon from their semiconductor suppliers, they also expect continuous enhancements in development ecosystems to help them reduce energy consumption and speed time to market,” said Daniel Cooley, Vice President and General Manager, MCU and wireless products, Silicon Labs. “We are closely attuned to the needs of our growing developer community and continue to enhance Simplicity Studio to make it the most productive, efficient and full-featured development platform in the embedded industry.”

Silicon Labs will regularly update the Simplicity Studio platform with new and enhanced features and support for MCU and wireless products. Before releasing extra platform versions, the company plans to beta-test key features with selected customers in Silicon Labs’ embedded developer community.