
Matter-ready platform brings AI and ML to the edge
This new co-optimized hardware and software platform, says the company, will help bring AI/ML applications and wireless high performance to battery-powered edge devices. Matter-ready, the ultra-low-power BG24 and MG24 families support multiple wireless protocols and incorporate PSA Level 3 Secure Vault protection, ideal for diverse smart home, medical and industrial applications.
The SoC and software solution for the Internet of Things (IoT) includes:
- Two new families of 2.4 GHz wireless SoCs, which feature the industry’s first integrated AI/ML accelerators, support for Matter, Zigbee, OpenThread, Bluetooth Low Energy, Bluetooth mesh, proprietary and multi-protocol operation, the highest level of industry security certification, ultra-low power capabilities and the largest memory and flash capacity in the Silicon Labs portfolio.
- A new software toolkit designed to allow developers to quickly build and deploy AI and machine learning algorithms using some of the most popular tool suites like TensorFlow.
“The BG24 and MG24 wireless SoCs,” says Matt Johnson, CEO of Silicon Labs, “represent an awesome combination of industry capabilities including broad wireless multiprotocol support, battery life, machine learning, and security for IoT Edge applications.”
The single-die BG24 and MG24 SoCs combine a 78 MHz ARM Cortex-M33 processor, high-performance 2.4 GHz radio, industry-leading 20-bit ADC, an optimized combination of Flash (up to 1536 kB) and RAM (up to 256 kB), and an AI/ML hardware accelerator for processing machine learning algorithms while offloading the ARM Cortex-M33, so applications have more cycles to do other work. Supporting a broad range of 2.4 GHz wireless IoT protocols, these SoCs incorporate the highest security with the best RF performance/energy-efficiency ratio in the market, says the company.
The BG24 and MG24 are designed to handle complex calculations quickly and efficiently, with internal testing showing up to a 4x improvement in performance along with up to a 6x improvement in energy efficiency. Because the ML calculations are happening on the local device rather than in the cloud, network latency is eliminated for faster decision-making and actions.
The BG24 and MG24 families also have the largest Flash and random access memory (RAM) capacities in the company’s portfolio. This means that the device can evolve for multi-protocol support, Matter, and trained ML algorithms for large datasets. PSA Level 3-Certified Secure Vault, the highest level of security certification for IoT devices, provides the security needed in products like door locks, medical equipment, and other sensitive deployments where hardening the device from external threats is paramount.
EFR32BG24 and EFR32MG24 SoCs in 5 mm x 5 mm QFN40 and 6 mm x 6 mm QFN48 packages are shipping today to Alpha customers and will be available for mass deployment in April 2022. Multiple evaluation boards are available to designers developing applications. Modules based on the BG24 and MG24 SoCs will be available in the second half of 2022.
