July 24, 2015 – Silicon Labs (Country Manager: Woon-Dal Paik), a specialist in microcontrollers, wireless connectivity, analog, and sensor solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT), announced a new version of the Simplicity Studio™ development platform, designed to make IoT design easier, faster, and more productive. As the industry's first IoT development platform to support both MCU and wireless design simultaneously, Simplicity Studio offers an advanced real-time energy profiler tool, faster execution speeds, and an easier setup process.

Battery-powered IoT applications, such as wearables, personal medical devices, wireless sensor nodes, and gas/water meters, require excellent energy efficiency to extend battery life. Predicting system-level energy consumption and battery life from MCU and wireless IC datasheets is a challenging and time-consuming task. Silicon Labs’ newly introduced Energy Profiler supports developers in optimizing IoT designs with ultra-low power and long battery life by providing a more intuitive user interface, enhanced usability, and superior accuracy and reliability for energy profiling.

The Energy Profiler tool is the only one in the embedded industry to offer a new Energy Score feature. Through the Energy Score feature, developers can benchmark the energy efficiency of their IoT system designs and determine which designs have the highest scores, which are directly related to battery life. A higher score (0–10) indicates lower energy consumption and longer battery life. Developers can save tasks and compare relevant data from specific saved tasks to better understand how design changes will affect overall energy efficiency.

The Energy Profiler provides enhanced energy graphing capabilities with the familiar look and feel of an oscilloscope. Developers can zoom in on the X (time) and Y (power) axes of the energy graph to analyze details of energy consumption with greater precision. Additionally, the profiler provides a direct correlation between the energy graph, the feature analyzer, and the application code. This comparative correlation feature of these three elements enhances developers' ability to optimize designs with very low energy consumption.

Silicon Labs supports developers in preparing and running projects faster and more efficiently by improving the efficiency of downloading and using Simplicity Studio. The size of the Simplicity Studio installation package has been reduced to one-tenth of its original size, allowing developers to visit the Silicon Labs website, download Simplicity Studio, and run the demo in less than 10 minutes. In addition, the tasks most frequently performed in Simplicity Studio, such as software examples and demos, run up to three times faster than in previous versions.

Daniel Cooley, Vice President and General Manager of MCU and Wireless at Silicon Labs, said, “Today, developers not only demand ‘faster, smaller, and cheaper’ semiconductors from suppliers but also expect continuous improvements to the development ecosystem to reduce energy consumption and accelerate time-to-market. We are closely responding to the needs of the growing developer community and are continuously enhancing the capabilities of Simplicity Studio to create the most productive, efficient, and fully featured development platform in the embedded industry.”