TI Commercializes the first Ultra-low Power Dual-band Wireless MCU

Aimed at expanding the functionality of Internet of Things (IoT) networks, Texas Instruments (TI) announces mass production of the industry’s lowest-power dual-band wireless microcontroller (MCU) supporting Sub-1 GHz and Bluetooth low energy connectivity on a single chip.

Now exclusively available, the new SimpleLink dual-band CC1350 wireless MCU are a part of TI’s pin-to-pin and software compatible SimpleLink ultra-low power platform enabling developers to move from a three-chip solution to a tiny single chip, while reducing design complexity, saving power, cost and board space.

Designed for low-power wide area networks (LPWAN), the CC1350 wireless MCU features:

• Dual-band connectivity that expands the functionality of a Sub-1 GHz network with Bluetooth low energy implementations such as beaconing, over-the-air updates, smart commissioning, remote displays and more.
• Long-range connectivity paired with ultra-low power consumption that offers a sleep current of 0.7 uA which allows for more than 10 years of battery life.
• Enhanced integration in a tiny wireless MCU that combines a Sub-1 GHz transceiver and Bluetooth low energy radio, as well as an ARM Cortex-M3 core in a single, Flash-based, 4×4 mm QFN package.

The CC1350 wireless MCU offers a range of up to 20 km on a coin cell battery for building and factory automation, alarm and security, smart grid, asset tracking and wireless sensor network applications.

Developers are known to quickly start with the low-cost SimpleLink CC1350 wireless MCU LaunchPad development kit or connect sensors to the cloud in minutes with the SimpleLink CC1350 SensorTag demo kit supported by TI’s Code Composer Studio integrated development environment (IDE) and IAR Embedded WorkBench.

Additionally, TI asserts to simplify development by providing multiple software options including point-to-point communication examples with EasyLink, a wireless M-Bus protocol stack leveraging TI RTOS, as well as the BLE-Stack 2.2 software development kit (SDK) which supports Bluetooth 4.2 specifications.

Developers will also have access to online training and E2E community support to help ease their design process.

Pricing and Availability

SimpleLink Sub-1 GHz CC1350 wireless MCU-based development kits are exclusively available on the TI Store and through TI authorized distributors.

• CC1350 LaunchPad kit (LAUNCHXL-CC1350): USD $29.00 – develop a complete prototype with a low-cost Sub-1 GHz and Bluetooth low energy wireless MCU hardware, software and RF development platform.
• CC1350 SensorTag demo kit (CC1350STK) coming in 4Q 2016: $29.99 – demonstrate your Sub-1 GHz and Bluetooth low energy project with a small, sensor-based kit which includes 10 low-power MEMS sensors and can connect to the cloud in less than three minutes.

The SimpleLink Sub-1 GHz CC1350 wireless MCUs, for operation in 315 MHz, 433 MHz, 470 MHz, 500 MHz, 779 MHz, 868 MHz, 915 MHz and 920 MHz and 2.4 GHz ISM bands and SRD systems, will be available in 4×4, 5×5 and 7×7 mm QFN packages. The devices available today are for 868 MHz, 915 MHz and 920 MHz ISM band operation and the 7×7 mm pricing is as follows:

• CC1350F128RGZR: $4.60 in 1,000 unit volumes.