From Silicon Labs: Wireless Gecko Series 2 Brings Security, RF Performance to Commercial, Industrial and Smart Home Applications

We’re excited to introduce the next generation of our Wireless Gecko platform, Series 2, which has been engineered to make IoT products more reliable, efficient, and powerful.

Developing IoT applications comes with its own set of challenges, including significant storage, power, battery life, and cost constraints. Building on the versatility of the Gecko platform, Series 2 is optimized for the most popular IoT protocols, including Zigbee, Thread, Bluetooth, Z-Wave, and Wi-Fi. It features high-performance wireless radios that deliver up to 2.5X the wireless range of competing solutions and includes a dedicated security core.

RF communications are also more dependable and energy efficient due to the highly integrated SoC options and feature-rich wireless stacks. Developers are able to optimize system cost and performance with Series 2 for a wide range of smart home, commercial and industrial IoT applications.

Developers are increasingly searching for flexible solutions to meet the demands of diverse IoT devices, and Series 2 provides a much-needed path forward for developers to bring differentiated products to market faster while reducing cost and overall design complexity.

Supporting Zigbee, Thread, Bluetooth LE and Bluetooth mesh, the initial Series 2 SoCs are the ideal wireless solution for line-powered IoT gateways, hubs, lights, smart speakers, and smart electric meters.

Key features include:

• Best-in-class RF performance with +20 dBm output power and up to +124.5 dB link budget
• Robust wireless radio with improved blocking performance
• Powerful processing with an 80 MHz Arm® Cortex®-M33 core with TrustZone technology
• Low active current (50.9 µA/MHz) to meet stringent green energy requirements, a benefit from manufacturing on low-power 40 nm process technology
• Industry’s smallest multiprotocol SoCs in a 4 mm x 4 mm QFN package

Secure by Design 

EFR32xG21 SoCs provide enhanced security features that enable developers to implement robust security in connected products:

• A dedicated security core enables faster, lower-power encryption than software techniques.
• A true random number generator strengthens device cryptography.
• Secure boot loading ensures authenticity of firmware images and over-the-air updates.
• Secure debug access control helps OEMs prevent unauthorized access to end products.

A Single Mesh Development Kit

The EFR32xG21 Wireless Gecko Starter Kit (SLWSTK6006A) includes everything you need to create a mesh network and evaluate the EFR32xG21 Series 2 Wireless Gecko SoCs. There’s a single kit for Bluetooth LE, Bluetooth mesh, Zigbee and Thread development, consisting of:

• 3 x WSTK main boards
• 3 x Wireless Gecko + 10 dBm radio boards
• 3 x Wireless Gecko +20 dBm radio boards

Source: https://www.silabs.com/community/blog.entry.html/2019/04/22/wireless_gecko_serie-vf8k

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