The new EZR32 wireless MCU delivers best-in-class power efficiency and sub-GHz RF performance, enabling a single-chip device to support both proprietary and industry-standard wireless protocols for any application requiring longer battery life, wider wireless range, a small form factor, and flexibility. The EZR32 family is ideal for applications such as smart metering, wireless sensor networks, home and building automation, security systems, remote monitoring, and logistics tracking.

The EZR32 wireless MCU integrates the EFM32™ MCU core and the EZRadio/EZRadioPRO sub-gigahertz transceiver, offering significant advantages over existing system designs that require combining the MCU and RF device separately. The seamless integration of 'MCU + RF' eliminates the burden on developers to handle complex connections between the MCU and RF, making the design process easier and significantly simplifying board design by minimizing the impact of interference. Developers can reduce component count and board area in size-constrained applications and embark on their desired wireless designs with a fully tested and field-validated single-chip wireless MCU solution.

The EZR32 family leads the industry with ultra-low power consumption and high-performance sub-gigahertz wireless capabilities. This wireless MCU provides RF coverage covering a wide range of frequency bands across all countries and regions, featuring a transmit output of +20dBm for longer transmission distances, along with industry-leading receive sensitivity, selectivity, and blocking performance. Combining the low standby mode and transmit/receive power consumption characteristics of EZRadio and EZRadioPRO transceivers with the ultra-low power operating mode and fast wake-up time characteristics of the EFM32 MCU yields an ideal solution for battery-powered wireless applications without compromising RF performance. This multi-protocol EZR32 device supports a wide variety of wireless applications based on IEEE 802.15.4/4g, Wireless M-Bus, Wi-SUN, and numerous proprietary wireless protocols.

The EZR32 family offers developers optimal flexibility and scalability for applications due to minimal redesign. This family consists of two pin-compatible product lines: the EZR32LG devices are based on the ARM Cortex-M3 core, while the EZR32WG devices support floating-point and DSP functions on the ARM Cortex-M4 core. Flash memory sizes are available in various options ranging from 64 to 256 kB. Both product lines include a diverse set of peripherals, including 32kB RAM, timers, counters, various communication interfaces, ADCs, DACs, low-power sensor interfaces (LESENSE), USB, and a 128-bit AES accelerator for advanced security and data protection.

The EZR32LG and EZR332WG devices offer a choice of EZRadio and EZRadioPRO transceivers to meet a range of RF performance requirements. The EZRadio version is suitable for most simple, cost-sensitive "button-based" wireless applications, such as remote control, garage door openers, and other point-to-point network configurations. The EZRadioPRO version is designed for applications requiring advanced wireless characteristics and superior RF performance to support ultra-long-range narrowband wireless connections, complex packet formats, and network protocols. This powerful EZRadioPRO transceiver architecture supports advanced packet processing and modem functions, such as automatic frequency compensation (AFC), preamble detection, automatic gain control (AGC), and frequency hopping.

Daniel Cooley, Vice President and General Manager of MCUs and Wireless Products at Silicon Labs, stated, “The sub-gigahertz wireless connectivity market is rapidly evolving to meet the power consumption, size, and cost requirements of today’s IoT applications,” and added, “For wireless connectivity device designs to be successful, they must satisfy the following three requirements: high integration, low power consumption, and simplicity. To meet these customer requirements, we developed the EZR32 family.” “This product family is characterized by providing seamless MCU/RF integration and best-in-class energy efficiency, as well as supporting an industry-leading development environment with a software stack that can significantly simplify the addition of sub-gigahertz wireless connectivity to battery-powered IoT designs,” he explained.

Simplification of wireless development

The Simplicity Studio development environment, now enhanced to support both MCU and wireless design simultaneously, provides a vast yet user-friendly platform for developing wireless applications based on the EZR32 family. Simplicity Studio supports the Silicon Labs Connect software stack, a newly fully tested wireless connectivity solution for point-to-point and star network architectures. Silicon Labs Connect separates the lower-level requirements of sub-gigahertz protocols and configurations, allowing designers to focus solely on application development. Silicon Labs also offers the cost-effective EZR32 Wireless Starter Kit, which provides all the hardware and software tools necessary for the verification and development of sub-gigahertz wireless applications. Hardware tools include an onboard debugger, energy monitoring, and integrated packet tracing. Simplicity Studio, along with all documentation and sample applications, is available for free download at www.silabs.com/simplicity-studio.

Product Price and Purchase Information

Samples and production models of the EZR32LG and EZR32WG wireless MCUs are currently available in a space-efficient 9x9mm 64-pin QFN package. Pricing starts at $2.71 for the EZR32LG and $2.98 for the EZR32WG, based on a quantity of 10,000 units. The SLWSTK62xxA starter kit, which supports various MCUs and RF configurations, is priced at $299.00. More information on Silicon Labs' EZR32 wireless MCU, as well as samples and development tools, can be found at www.silabs.com/wireless.