Cypress Expands Wireless Connectivity with New 802.11ac Low Power Solutions

March 16 2017, 03:50
Cypress Semiconductor announced two new wireless solutions that deliver advanced coexistence and robust connectivity combining 802.11ac high-performance Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). The 802.11ac solutions use high-speed transmissions to enable devices with faster downloads and better range, as well as lower power consumption by quickly exploiting deep sleep modes. The solutions are supported in Cypress' popular WICED Studio development platform.
 

Wi-Fi networks powered by 802.11ac simultaneously deliver low-latency and high-speed with secure device authentication, making them the ideal wireless technology for connecting devices directly to the cloud. The new highly integrated Cypress CYW43455 advanced multi-radio wireless solution incorporates high-performance 802.11ac, low-power Bluetooth 4.2 and BLE. This combo solution is ideal for smart home products that require high-speed Wi-Fi combined with low power BLE connections for motion sensing.

The Cypress CYW54907 802.11ac microcontroller (MCU) integrates a high-performance 320-MHz ARM Cortex-R4 application processor and an advanced 802.11ac subsystem. This powerful dual-band solution offers bridging for IoT gateways and synchronized streaming audio solutions. Both solutions feature a dual-band 2.4- and 5-GHz radio with 20-, 40- and 80-MHz channels with up to 433 Mbps performance.

"Wi-Fi is the backbone of Internet connectivity, and 802.11ac high-performance Wi-Fi has become the standard for enterprise infrastructure and home gateways," says Michael Hogan, Vice President of the IoT Business Unit at Cypress. "802.11ac is now beginning to ramp in IoT devices, helping them meet coexistence challenges in sharing the crowded 2.4-GHz band with Bluetooth devices, delivering cleaner air for audio, video and voice control data, as well as improved network performance for multi-user environments."

Cypress WICED Studio Development Platform
The Cypress WICED (Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices) Studio development platform features an integrated and interoperable wireless software development kit (SDK). The SDK includes rigorously tested Wi-Fi and Bluetooth protocol stacks, as well as simplified application programming interfaces that free developers from needing to learn complex wireless technologies. The SDK supports Cypress' Wi-Fi and Bluetooth combination solutions and its Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low Energy devices. The SDK enables cloud connectivity in minutes with robust libraries that uniquely integrate popular cloud services such as Amazon Web Services, IBM Bluemix, Alibaba Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, along with services from private cloud partners.

Cypress's WICED Studio connectivity suite is microcontroller (MCU)-agnostic and provides ready support for a variety of third-party MCUs to address the needs of complex IoT applications. The platform also enables cost efficient solutions for simple applications by integrating MCU functionality into the connectivity device. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth protocol stacks can run transparently on a host MCU or in embedded mode, allowing for flexible platform architectures with common firmware.

The Cypress WICED Studio 4 development platform offers simplified application programming interfaces that free developers from needing to learn about complex wireless technologies. The SDK features a single installer package for multiple wireless technologies with an Eclipse-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that runs on multiple operating systems, including Windows, MacOS and Linux.

The CYW43455 and CYW54907 802.11ac solutions are currently sampling. Full production is expected early in May 2017.
www.cypress.com/802.11ac
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