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CSR Launches “µEnergy” Bluetooth Low Energy Platform

CSR plc have today announced the launch of their single-mode Bluetooth® Low Energy platform, CSR µEnergy™, and the first chips based on this, the CSR1000 and CSR1001. Here at Kolila Consulting, we are particularly excited about this announcement as we have contributed to the development of the CSR100x on-chip software!

The µEnergy™ platform is targeted at ultra low power devices that need low-bandwidth wireless connectivity. It will provide everything required to create a Bluetooth Low Energy product with RF, baseband, microcontroller, qualified Bluetooth v4.0 stack, and customer application running on a single chip.

“The CSR µEnergy platform unlocks the potential of the Bluetooth Low Energy standard and is a huge step forward in consumer wireless technology. Bluetooth Low Energy technology is an alternative to the fractured market of proprietary and poorly adopted standards and can be deployed in a variety of everyday devices, changing the way that we interact with our local environment,” commented Anthony Murray, Senior Vice President of the Audio and Consumer Business Unit at CSR.

He went on to say that “The ultra low power consumption of CSR’s µEnergy platform enables a new range of accessories to connect to the mobile phone, TV, PC, media player or tablet, enabling consumers to experience the power of these services in the home or products that they carry. Bluetooth Low Energy sensors in consumer products will enable their behaviour to be customised to the needs of the user, and tags will enable consumers to search and locate products and services around them.”

The CSR µEnergy platform, with its built-in processor, is designed for use in consumer products and requires no external processor to run customer applications. It includes four quadrature decoders to enable mouse and pointing devices, three analogue inputs for direct measurement of sensor, and digital serial connectors for external sensors and displays.

The chips each have direct antenna connections, can connect directly to a 3V coin cell or a pair of AAA batteries, and come with three pulse width modulation outputs for variable power control in applications such as lighting control or vibration motors. They can run in optimised sleep modes with currents as low as 600nA and chips can “wake” quickly in response to external input signals for applications such as remote controls. Both chips provide embedded support for keyboard scanning while “asleep” at less than 5µA.

CSR µEnergy is available in two package options. CSR1000 comes in a 32-pin 5x5x0.6mm QFN package. CSR1001, in a 56 pin 8x8x0.9mm QFN, provides extra pins for more complex products with a larger number of digital inputs, such as keyboards, remote control products or home information displays.

Both CSR1000 and CSR1001 can act as a master or slave using CSR’s recently qualified Bluetooth v4.0 host stack providing complete Generic Access Profile (GAP), L2CAP, Security Manager, Attribute Protocol (ATT) and Generic Attribute Profile (GATT). These devices enable customers to run their complete application on chip using the embedded 16-bit microprocessor.