Embedded World: Bluetooth chip gets Arm Cortex-M33 to run applications and algorithms

“The product family is the first wireless microcontroller in production with a dedicated application processor based on the ARM Cortex-M33 processor,” said Dialog. “The M33 offers developers greater processing power for more intensive applications, such as high-end fitness trackers, advanced smart home devices and virtual reality game controllers.”

For physical security – ensuring the user is actually local in remote keyless entry, for example – Bluetooth’s recent ‘angle-of-arrival’ and ‘angle-of-departure’ features are supported.

The M33 is actually one of three cores on-board, as the transceiver’s configurable MAC includes a Cortex-M0 software-programmable packet engine, which means it can run proprietary protocols and it future-proofed for new Bluetooth features. This is combined with hardware accelerators, including one for AES encryption.

The third processor is what the firm is calling a power-saving ‘sensor node controller’ (SNC) – a small programmable DSP that runs autonomously while the other processors are asleep, independently processing data from external digital and analogue sensors, waking the application M33 only when needed.

Also on-board is a +6dBm transmitter – configurable in 0.8dBm steps, and up from 0dBm in the firm’s previous generation – and a receiver sensitive to -96dBm. Tx consumption is 3.5mA at 0dBm and Rx is 2.2mA at full sensitivity.

“The SoCs feature up to 144DMIPS, 512kbyte of RAM, memory protection, a floating-point unit, a dedicated crypto engine to enable end-to-end security and expandable memories, ensuring a range of smart device applications can be implemented using the chipset family,” said Dialog.

Power management features provides three regulated power rails and one LDO output to supply external system components – removing the requirement of a separate power management IC (PMIC).

Interfaces include a display driver, an audio interface, USB, a high-accuracy ADC, a haptic driver (for both rotating and linear shakers) and a a programmable stepper motor controller to operate the hands of a watch.

“With the DA1469x family, we have doubled the processing power, quadrupled available resources and doubled the battery lifetime compared to its predecessor, making it by far, one of the most advanced, feature-rich Bluetooth products we’ve developed to date,” said Dialog general manager Sean McGrath.

Variants will start volume production in the first half of 2019. Samples and development kits are available.