At the recent Bluetooth SIG All Hands Meeting in Tokyo, Japan, ultra low power (ULP) 2.4 GHz RF specialist, Nordic Semiconductor, previewed µBlue™, its upcoming Bluetooth low energy solution range. The company states that μBlue will bring Bluetooth wireless connectivity to portable devices running on small but standard coin cell (watch) batteries and support battery lifetimes from months to years depending on the application.
Nordic Semiconductor pioneered the ultra low power wireless sector and has led the development and re-development of proprietary ULP wireless chips that continue to re-define what is possible in terms of performance, power consumption and price. µBlue is an extension of this heritage into the interoperable standards-based domain.
It is a single mode Bluetooth low energy solution offering low peak current and micro ampere average current supporting Bluetooth wireless technology applications. µBlue will be based on a single chip architecture integrating Nordic’s latest ultra low power radio with baseband plus a microcontroller with fully embedded software stack. The first product in the µBlue range will include the nRF8001 – a single mode slave chip ideal for mobile phone peripherals, remote controls and sensors and watches – scheduled to be generally available second half 2009, shortly after the official release of the first 1.0 version of the Bluetooth low energy specification.
Thomas Embla Bonnerud, product manager for Ultra Low Power Wireless at Nordic Semiconductor, said, “We are thrilled to provide this preview of our upcoming Bluetooth low energy solution. Nordic does not typically provide previews of upcoming products until they are actually available. But we decided to make an exception with μBlue because Bluetooth low energy is a technology the market is eagerly awaiting and we believe that everybody has a good idea of what to expect in terms of solutions on the dual mode side. This is not the case with the single mode solution, and since it is an equally important piece of the Bluetooth low energy technology we decided to provide a preview of our solution. We believe that this will greatly benefit those interested in making Bluetooth low energy products for launch in 2010.”
