SPARK Microsystems’ SR1120 UWB Transceiver Outperforms Bluetooth by 40X for Wireless Data Throughput

Second-generation SPARK chip delivers 100X lower power ranging than UWB competitors; extends leadership in high data rates, power efficiency, latency and signal robustness 

Montreal, Canada — April 22, 2025  — SPARK Microsystems, a Canadian fabless semiconductor company specializing in next-generation short-range wireless communications, today introduces its second-generation ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless transceiver, the SR1120.  

The SR1120 extends SPARK’s established performance leadership in data delivery while enabling significantly lower power consumption, latency and better interference robustness compared to Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 2.4 GHz radios. SPARK UWB’s data throughput leadership versus Bluetooth has doubled from 20X to 40X higher data rates (40.96 megabits per second), while maintaining established gains over Wi-Fi performance. The SR1120 transceiver achieves these performance metrics at approximately 25X lower power than Bluetooth, and 60X lower latency. 

In addition to robust data communication, when compared to other UWB offerings in the market limited to ranging and positioning applications, SPARK’s SR1120 delivers competing ranging capability at approximately 100X lower power consumption, in a uniquely cost-effective architecture. The new SR1120 enables approximately 50% greater range compared to the previous generation SPARK SR1020 and supports multi-antenna configurations leveraging freely licensed spectrum from 6.2 to 9.5 GHz. 

SPARK UWB transcends the longstanding performance limitations of legacy short-range wireless technologies, driving adoption in gaming, edge AI applications, audio, and a broad range of IoT use cases — including industrial systems, robotics, and medical devices. Going forward, body area networks (BANs) will evolve to integrate implantable medical devices and sensors that transmit neural activity in real time. Consequently, wireless data transceivers will need to accommodate exponentially larger volumes of data. 

“Every engineer knows the pain of compromise with wireless transceivers — you get the speed but burn through power, or you save power but your latency suffers,” said Fares Mubarak, CEO, SPARK Microsystems. “We built the SR1120 to bring an end to those compromises by hitting all the marks at once: high data rates, low power, minimal latency and a footprint small enough to fit anywhere. This is a fundamental shift in what wireless can do, going well beyond Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.” 

SPARK Microsystems’ SR1120 UWB wireless transceivers are available today from SPARK and its global network of partners and distributors. Customers can use SPARK’s SR1120 evaluation kit (EVK) and software development kit (SDK) to quickly assess, prototype and integrate designs. More information about SPARK’s SR1120 is available here. 

About SPARK Microsystems 

SPARK Microsystems is building next generation short-range wireless communication devices. SPARK UWB provides high data rate and very low latency wireless communication links at an ultra-low power profile, making it ideal for personal area networks (PANs) used in mobile, consumer and IoT-connected products. Leveraging patented technologies, SPARK Microsystems strives to minimize and ultimately eliminate wires and batteries from a wide range of applications. For more information, please visit www.sparkmicro.com.