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three advertising channels normally
used.
Also, you need to consider the
processor resources that may be
available for application code within
the Bluetooth Smart SoC. If it’s
possible to produce a completely
hosted solution without resorting to
an external microcontroller, this will
again save design time, cost and
space.
In selecting a Bluetooth Smart radio,
other important considerations are
sometimes overlooked. Functional
integration will determine how many
external components are needed
to create the beacon. The fewer
you need, the less design effort is
required and the lower the cost of
the end product. Fewer components
also means you can make smaller
products that will be more reliable.
Design effort is also reduced if
the Bluetooth Smart vendor offers
a reference design and proven
software.
A Bluetooth Smart beacon
reference design
Dialog Semiconductor’s DA14580
“SmartBond” SoC integrates a
16.9x23.7x1.00 mm printed circuit
board and a 70 mAh CR1016 coin
cell battery.
About the author: Mr. Mark de
Clercq, Product Marketing Group
Manager at Dialog Semiconductor
Mark joined Dialog Semiconductor
in 2007 as Product Marketing Group
Manager. Prior to this he was a design
engineer at Phillips Electronics and
held research and teaching posts at
McGill University, where he took his
Masters in Microelectronics. He has
also studied strategic marketing at
the Harvard Business School.
In his spare time Mark enjoys
getting out on his bike, self-tracking
his progress using the latest app-
enabled Bluetooth
®
accessory.
Bluetooth Smart radio with an ARM
®
Cortex™-M0 application processor
and intelligent power management.
The processor and on-chip digital
and analogue peripherals are
accessible via up to 32 GPIOs. The
device block diagram is shown in
Figure 2.
Excluding any current limiting
resistors needed for buzzers or
LEDs, Dialog’s DA14580 beacon
reference design needs only 12
external components: 6 capacitors,
a 16 MHz crystal, 3 inductors and 3
resistors.
The device, which is available in
either a 2.5x2.5x0.5 mm WL-CSP
or 5x5x0.9 mm QFN40 package,
has a peak current consumption of
4.8 mA at 3 volts when transmitting
at 0 dBm and this falls to 1.4 µA in
extended sleep mode and less than
0.7 µA in deep sleep mode with
memory retention. Each advertising
event consumes 9.53 µC (total for
all 3 channels). Receiver sensitivity
is -93 dBm.
Figure 3 shows the reference design
implemented in a polyurethane
enclosure measuring 20.3x39.9x5.8
mm. Inside the enclosure, is a
Figure 2: Dialog Semiconductor DA14580 simplified block diagram
Figure 3: DA14580 Bluetooth
Smart beacon reference design
implemented in a small, tough
polyurethane enclosure