Ceva-Waves Bluetooth 5 low energy Baseband Controller, software and profiles

Overview

Ceva-Waves Bluetooth 5 low energy IP is a comprehensive and flexible solution for integration into SoCs/ASSPs.

The BLE hardware baseband controller core (BLE-BB), in charge of packet encoding/decoding and frame scheduling, is complemented by a hardware AES128 encryption engine for real time encryption/decryption of the packets.
The firmware is composed of the Link Layer(LL) and Host Control Interface (HCI). It is provided with reference platform drivers and with a small task scheduler offering task management, inter-task communications, message (queues and events) management and timing management, for use as standalone or integrated into other real time OS.

For a more comprehensive solution, the BLE baseband controller IP is complemented with:
  • the Ceva-Waves BLE host protocol stack and profiles. It can be combined with the firmware of the BLE baseband controller to create a fully embedded or fully hosted solution, or run on a separate micro-controller.
  • the Ceva-Waves Bluetooth RF IP. This is a complete radio transceiver including modem compliant with Bluetooth low energy.

    The combined BLE firmware and BLE host protocol stack and profiles form a highly flexible solution supporting 3 different configurations:
  • Fully hosted configuration: all software is running on the same embedded processor. There is no HCI. Alternatively, the complete software can run on a host/application processor, driving a CPU-less BLE IC containing the BLE baseband controller core.
  • Split configuration: lower layers below HCI are running on the embedded processor while the upper layers above HCI are running on the host/application processor.
  • Fully embedded configuration: all software is running on the embedded processor, while the application is running on the host/application processor.

    A processor agnostic turnkey fully integrated platform with embedded open source processor is also proposed as a cost effective and short time to market alternative solution.

    The BLE host protocol stack and profiles can also be used with any Bluetooth low energy HCI controller IC.
  • Key Features

    • Compliant with the Bluetooth low energy versions 4.0/4.1/4.2/5 specifications
    • Supports all mandatory and optional features of Bluetooth low energy, including all the BLE4.2 and BLE5 features such as 2Mbps, Long Range, Advertising Extensions, Channel Selection #2
    • Optimized architecture for scatternet operations (master + slaves simultaneous links, including several simultaneous slave links)
    • Supports all BLE packet types
    • Supports master and slave modes
    • Supports all states: standby, advertising, scanning, initiating, connection, ...
    • White list
    • Frequency Hopping with channel assessment for higher link robustness and improved coexistence with interferers such as Wi-Fi devices
    • Embedded coexistence interface for collocation with other wireless protocols such as Wi-Fi, Zigbee, ...
    • AES128 encryption
    • Complete software protocol stack: Link Layer (LL), Host Control Interface (HCI), L2CAP, Attribute Protocol (ATT), Security Management Protocol (SMP), Generic Attribute Profile (GATT), Generic Access Profile (GAP), and a comprehensive list of services and profiles (Proximity, Find Me, Health Thermometer, HOGP, A4WP, ...).
    • Standard Bluetooth Mesh profile is also available for lighting and other mesh smart home / building applications.

    Benefits

    • Hardware core designed in synthesizable Verilog for easy technology migration
    • Hardware encryption
    • Flexible and portable software written in C
    • Low operating frequency selectable between 8 and 32 MHz
    • Support of 32000 Hz and 32768 Hz low power clock
    • AMBA2 AHB bus or SPI interface for easy integration into any ASIC or SiP
    • Designed for minimal power consumption
    • Low gate count
    • Low MIPS and low memory footprint
    • Support of RF qualification mode and regulatory body
    • DFT ready, accepted by major ATPG tools

    Block Diagram

    Ceva-Waves Bluetooth 5 low energy Baseband Controller, software and profiles Block Diagram

    Applications

    • IoT, smart home, smart building
    • Tag, asset tracking
    • Sport & Fitness: wristband, smartwatch, heartrate monitor, running speed, cycling speed, weight scale
    • Medical: thermometer, glucose monitor, blood pressure monitor, ...
    • Remote control: mouse, keyboard, game pad
    • Hearing Aid
    • Wireless charging (A4WP)
    • Mesh: lighting, sensors, ...

    Deliverables

    • hardware: verilog RTL, testbench, compilation, simulation and synthesis scripts
    • software: C
    • documents
    • test tool running on Windows or Linux

    Technical Specifications

    Foundry, Node
    any
    Maturity
    Silicon proven
    Availability
    Available
    ×
    Semiconductor IP