Low-power of Bluetooth SoCs depends on Dolphin Integration's oscillators

Grenoble, France – April 25, 2016 - As an unavoidable technology for IoT, the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol is designed to enable very low-power consumption devices. To save power, designers of BLE ICs need to implement a wake-up system, sufficiently accurate from a time tracking point-of-view, to ensure that paired devices operate in the same time-window. The higher the clock drift, the earlier a slave device needs to wake-up, thereby wasting significant power consumption over time.

Dolphin Integration’s oscillator IPs, specifically designed for the Always-On Domain, provide unprecedented optimization capabilities to BLE designers needing to find the best compromise between ultra-low power consumption, low BoM cost, high accuracy of frequency setting and fast power-up.

Discover our low frequency oscillators

The qOSC-XTAL-LP-32k-co.01 crystal oscillator IP consumes as little as 50 nA at 32.768 kHz without requiring any external capacitor. It is also designed to reach a high accuracy of frequency, as good as 50 ppm, through a guided addition of capacitors.

This crystal oscillator IP is provided either stand-alone or as part of an ultra-low power Real Time Clock (RTC) IP, the RTC-32k-CAL.01, and can be complemented with the fully integrated qOSC-RC-LP-32k-co.01 RC oscillator IP which operates at 32 kHz with ultra-low power (70 nA) and fast wake-up time (200 us).

Low-power IC designers may ensure at once the fastest startup time and accurate time tracking by combining the high-accuracy crystal oscillator (qOSC-XTAL-LP-32k-co.01) with the fast wake-up RC oscillator (qOSC-RC-LP-32k-co.01).

Such oscillator and RTC IPs complement the panoply of Low Power IPs from Dolphin Integration to achieve power consumption as low as 0.5 uA for a feature-rich always-on domain. They are designed to operate as low as 0.55 V @ 55 nm uLP/uLP eF to enable a single and extremely low voltage operation for the whole always-on domain with low power awakening triggers, low quiescent voltage regulators….

About Dolphin Integration

Dolphin Integration contributes to "enabling low-power Systems-on-Chip" for worldwide customers - up to the major actors of the semiconductor industry - with high-density Silicon IP components best at low-power consumption.

The "Foundation IP" of this offering involves innovative libraries of standard cells, register files and memory generators. The "Fabric IP" of voltage regulators, Power Island Construction Kits and their control network MAESTRO enable a flexible assembly with their loads. They especially star the "Feature IP": from high-resolution converters for audio and measurement applications to power-optimized 8 or 16 and 32 bit micro-controllers.

Over 30 years of experience in the integration of silicon IP components, providing services for ASIC/SoC design and fabrication with its own EDA solutions, make Dolphin Integration a genuine one-stop shop addressing all customers' needs for specific requests.

It is not just one more supplier of Technology, but the provider of the DOLPHIN INTEGRATION know-how!

The company strives to incessantly innovate for its customers’ success, which has led to two strong differentiators:

• state-of-the-art “panoplies of Semiconductor IP components” for high-performance applications securing the most competitive SoC architectural solutions,
• a team of Integration and Application Engineers supporting each user’s need for optimal application schematics, demonstrated through EDA solutions enabling early performance assessments.

Its social responsibility has been from the start focused on the design of integrated circuits with low-power consumption, placing the company in the best position to now contribute to new applications for general power savings through the emergence of the Internet of Things.