STMicro boosts ‘Appcessory’ boom

ST’s BlueNRG network processor provides the functions needed to link the Bluetooth® Smart device to a Bluetooth® Smart Ready host such as a smartphone or a tablet. Best-in-class active current consumption enables ultra low-power devices to operate for months or even years from a small coin-cell battery. Compliant with the latest Bluetooth 4.0 standard, BlueNRG features its own radio, processor and Bluetooth firmware to simplify the wireless design allowing engineers to concentrate on creating innovative applications. Bluetooth 4.0 Low-Energy wireless technology consumes only a fraction of the power of Classic Bluetooth and is the technology behind the new wave of Bluetooth Smart devices now entering the market. All major mobile and desktop operating systems now support Bluetooth Smart Ready operations, paving the way to an ecosystem of Bluetooth Smart devices. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has noted dramatic year-on-year growth in Smart and Smart Ready end-product listings, such as wellness monitors, fitness equipment, wearable devices and proximity tags. ABI Research predicts a massive growth in Bluetooth-enabled appcessories from 220 million units this year to nearly 1 billion units per year by 2016. ST is aiming to win a large share of this market leveraging the unmatched energy efficiency of its BlueNRG IC, which enables superior battery life and excellent wireless-link performance. In addition to best-in-class current consumption, with peak current of only 8.2mA in transmit mode at 0dBm and 7.3mA in receiver mode, BlueNRG also has frugal power management and transitions rapidly between operating modes thereby minimizing unproductive power. Moreover, BlueNRG gives designers flexibility to choose their preferred host microcontroller and comes complete with Bluetooth Low-Energy profiles to run in the external application processor. The on-chip non-volatile memory enables easy firmware upgrades in the field to maintain compliance with future releases of the Bluetooth specification.