EM9304 system-on-chip. Source: EM Microelectronic. The EM9304 is architected for flexible usage in various Bluetooth® low- energy (BLE) applications. For simple applications such as beacons or smart-sensing wearables, the EM9304 can be used standalone or connected to various sensors with standard serial interfaces. Users can also take advantage of a powerful yet low-power 32-bit processor with a floating-point-unit and on-chip NVM. Alternatively the EM9304 can be connected with a standard MCU or custom ASIC for customers requiring just a simple and easy-to-implement BLE add-on function to existing applications.
The EM9304 is reportedly the smallest BLE v4.2 SoC available on the market, featuring a 2.4 GHz transceiver with state-of-the-art receiver sensitivity, and programmable transmit power for optimized current consumption. The EM9304 includes an on-chip power management system with automatic configuration for 1.5 V or 3 V batteries. It is compatible with standard 1.5 V MCUs, such as ultra-low-power watch microprocessors from EM Microelectronic, or with standard 3 V microprocessors from many vendors. The EM9304 comes with 128 kB OTP for applications, 48 kB RAM to support application development, and up to 20 kB RAM of retention data RAM.
Hardware and software development kits are available now, including commercially available tools with an IDE and debugger. A website and forum are available to help customers with their development, including hardware and firmware examples. QFN samples are available now and full production will be in early 2017. Customer support for PCB design and FCC/CE certification are available.
