Dual-mode, single-chip IC is first to support BLE 4.2

Building on the success of previous Toshiba dual-mode Bluetooth ICs, the TC35661-551 offers the ability to implement secure connections based around ECDH (Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman) public key cryptography, a technology adopted by the Bluetooth 4.2 standard. This additional security provides a very high degree of protection against 'passive eavesdropping' attacks.

Bluetooth Classic and BLE are not interoperable, which means different device protocols and profiles are needed to match the communication method of the host application. Because the TC35661-551 incorporates both the Serial Port Profile (SPP) required for Bluetooth Classic communication and the Generic Attribute Profile (GATT) used for BLE, the IC supports high-speed serial communication (SPP) as well as all kind of BLE applications. Standard and proprietary BLE profiles can easily be attached over the UART interface to the embedded GATT layer.

Described as the industry’s most competitive dual-mode Bluetooth device, Toshiba's original dual-mode IC – the TC35661-501– has been produced in tens of millions of pieces per month. This IC can be found in hundreds of automotive, industrial, consumer and healthcare applications around the world. As well as adding the BLE 4.2 secure connection feature, the new TC35661-551 supports larger MTU packet sizes of 160bytes. This means that it can deliver higher data transfer rates than its predecessor. In addition, extended GATT functionality supports more complex BLE profiles with larger GATT Server database.

The TC35661-551 can work with operating voltages of 1.8V and 3.3V and integrates UART, I²C and GPIO interfaces. Sleep mode and host wake-up functions extend battery life in mobile products. Dimensions of the ultra-compact TFBGA64 package are just 5mm x 5mm.