IoT SoC supports multiple LPWA networks

BRUSSELS—The Imec research institute (Leuven, Belgium) has designed an SoC integrating support for five low power wide area (LPWA) networks for the Internet of Things. Separately, it struck a deal to collaborate with Infineon Technologies AG on the design of a CMOS-based 79 GHz radar chip for cars, it announced at its annual Imec Technology Forum here.

Imec claims its LPWA chip—co-developed with the Holst Center, a sister institute in the Netherlands—is the most integrated and lowest cost of its kind to date. The chip supports five nets that run in the 780-930 MHz ISM band and are geared for smart meters or smart cities—802.15.4g/k, LoRa, KNX-RF, Sigfox and Wireless M-Bus.

The SoC includes an RF front end, power management, an unidentified ARM core, 160 Kbytes SRAM and peripherals. It consumes just 8 milliWatts in receive mode and 113mW while transmitting at 13.5 dBm output power.

The chip has a -120 dBm sensitivity at 0.1% BER at 1 Kbit/second and a 105 dB dynamic range. Output power can be controlled at levels ranging from less than -40 dBm to 15 dBm.