Low-power radio chip handles long-range links

The LPWA Multi-Standard Radio IC is said to operate with lower power consumption than any other radio chip. Targeting long range connectivity in sensor networks, the sub-GHz transceiver can serve IEEE 802.15.4g/k, W-MBUS, KNX-RF, as well as LoRa and SIGFOX networks, and future cellular IoT networks.

The radio operates in ISM and short-range devices (SRD) bands, covering 780 to 930 MHz and includes the RF front end, power management, an ARM processor, and 160 Kbytes of SRAM. It features a targeted sensitivity of -120 dBm at 0.1% BER (1kbps) and power consumption of just 8 mW (Rx) and 113 mW (Tx) for 13.5 dBm output power. Interested companies are invited to partner with imec on this device.