Silicon Labs’ New xG26 Family of Wireless IoT SoC and MCU Sets New Standard
May 02, 2024
News
In a recent release, Silicon Labs announced its new xG26 family of Wireless SoC and MCU designed for the IoT and, according to the company, its highest performance device family to date.
The xG26 group includes the multiprotocol MG26 SoC, Bluetooth LE BG26 SoC, and the PG26 MCU. Silicon Labs said that all of them are designed to be “future-proof” and prepare IoT systems for the demanding applications of the future, mentioning Matter in particular.
"As users from consumer to industrial sectors extract more benefits from their IoT deployments, their requirements are steadily increasing," said Matt Johnson, CEO of Silicon Labs. "The new xG26 family is built for the future, empowering device manufacturers with the confidence that their current designs will meet tomorrow’s demands."
According to the announcement, the xG26 family has several modular, optional features that are designed to help engineers build devices that are ready for advanced IoT and AI applications. These options include:
- Huge Flash, RAM, and GPIO capacity that is designed to allow IoT device builders to develop advanced edge applications. This is double the previous generation from the company and also has double the number of general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins as the xG24.
- Higher performance compute in a multicore format with an ARM Cortex-M33 CPU and dedicated cores for the radio and security subsystems, helping to free up the main core for customer applications.
- Embedded AI/ML hardware acceleration, reportedly enabling up to 8x faster processing of machine learning algorithms using as little as 1/6th the power.
- Security with Silicon Labs Secure Vault and ARM TrustZone. The release also says that users can leverage the Silicon Labs Custom Part Manufacturing Service to hard-code xG26 devices with customer-designed security keys and other features in the fabrication process.
- 2.4 GHz wireless connectivity leveraging Silicon Labs' software stacks for Matter, Zigbee, OpenThread, Bluetooth Low Energy, Bluetooth Mesh, Proprietary, and Multiprotocol options, among others. The company said the family also has an impressive RF link budget to improve range and reduce transmission retries.
To learn more about IoT connectivity and Silicon Labs, visit:
- The Silicon Labs Matter Developer Journey
- The Silicon Labs Bluetooth Developer Journey
Ken Briodagh is a writer and editor with two decades of experience under his belt. He is in love with technology and if he had his druthers, he would beta test everything from shoe phones to flying cars. In previous lives, he’s been a short order cook, telemarketer, medical supply technician, mover of the bodies at a funeral home, pirate, poet, partial alliterist, parent, partner and pretender to various thrones. Most of his exploits are either exaggerated or blatantly false.
