A Bluetooth LE Throughput Faceoff


The Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) space is shared by over 50 IC suppliers, each in healthy competition with one another. This healthy competition is one of the main driving forces behind the constant innovation and wide spread of Bluetooth LE technology. In the spirit of competition, we thought it would be fun to stage a friendly competition between ourselves and one of our competitors, an estab... » read more

A RISC-V ISA Extension For Ultra-Low Power IoT Wireless Signal Processing


This work presents an instruction-set extension to the open-source RISC-V ISA (RV32IM) dedicated to ultra-low power (ULP) software-defined wireless IoT transceivers. The custom instructions are tailored to the needs of 8/16/32-bit integer complex arithmetic typically required by quadrature modulations. The proposed extension occupies only 2 major opcodes and most instructions are designed to co... » read more

Week In Review: IoT, Security, Autos


Internet of Things Sensors that see in the dark, look deep into our faces and hear the impossible, were all part of ams’ CES lineup this week. ams announced that it has designed an advanced spectral ambient light sensor (ALS) for high-end mobile phone cameras. The ALS, called the AS7350, identifies the light source and makes an accurate white balance under low-light and other non-ideal condi... » read more

EEMBC Offers Benchmark for Bluetooth LE in IoT


The Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium is introducing the IoTMark-BLE benchmark, for certifying the performance of devices using the Bluetooth Low Energy wireless protocol for Internet of Things applications. It is the first in the group’s IoT-Connect benchmark series. EEMBC also is preparing the ULPBench 2.0 standard, which will test the ultra-low-power capabilities of connected... » read more

Keeping NFCs Secure


Short-range communications, including near-field and semi-near-field communications such as Bluetooth, AirDrop, and Zigbee, have become as much a part of our daily lives as our mobile devices. Through some incredible engineering and standards efforts, they have achieved low-power communication over short distances with remarkable accuracy and consistency. But as even more devices begin tapping ... » read more