Industry Expert Blogs
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Turnkey Embedded Communications Systems for IoT ConnectivityFranz Dugand - Ceva, Inc.Mar 16, 2025 |
The one must-have feature in any personal audio or home automation product is wireless, frequently through a variety of protocols: Bluetooth, Zigbee, Thread and Matter. The challenge is that competitive products in this market demand a tight implementation, depending on communications systems embedded together with the rest of the product functionality. That integration has historically required some level of wireless expertise from a product builder needing IoT connectivity, shutting out many otherwise highly creative design teams who lack that expertise. Ceva has now taken a big step to empower these innovators too through the Ceva-Waves Links200, a fully turnkey embedded multi-protocol communications system hosting support for Bluetooth and IEEE 802.15.4 (for Zigbee, Thread and Matter). This communications system is truly turnkey, spanning all the way from baseband controller to RF and power amplifier, together with software protocol stacks and profiles supporting the very latest features from these standards, including next generation Bluetooth High Data Throughput (HDT) supporting up to 7.5Mbps. Link200 is targeted for TSMC 12nm FFC+, an ideal choice for the design of advanced smart edge AI SoCs.
Links200, Why Now?
Pre-integrated and validated turnkey IP systems are gaining traction. The reasons are simple – risk reduction for expert design teams on tight schedules, and access to advanced solutions for teams needing IoT connectivity who otherwise couldn't contemplate that level of functionality. We saw this at CES 2025 where we enjoyed record attendance to hear about our Links200 communications system.
The wearables market is a significant driver in this area and continues to be very active as product builders aim to maintain a steady beat of advances to stay ahead. Given rapidly evolving feature sets in earbuds, Auracast, low-latency audio for gaming and many more areas, this is not surprising. The global wireless earphone market (mostly Bluetooth) already stands at above $74B and is expected to show a CAGR of 10% through 2032. The 802.15.4 market for IoT connectivity products currently accounts for $34B in revenue, with a respectable CAGR of around 6-7% driven by home, office and industrial automation.
Especially important is a trend to multi-protocol support in IoT connectivity implementations to address interoperability between these standards. Bluetooth is ubiquitous for audio connectivity, Zigbee is dominant for in-home automation today, though faces competition from Thread for Internet connectivity further enhanced by the emerging Matter standard for cross-brand connectivity. High volume products are finding they must offer support for all these IoT connectivity protocols in an integrated communications system. Fortunately, this is very possible and requires almost no additional hardware when built on a strong Bluetooth base.
The Links200 Platform
This new Ceva communications system builds on Ceva IP and software already shipping in over a billion devices per year, from consumer audio to wearables, medical, smart phones, smart home and to automotive applications. Bluetooth is a well-established solution for audio and IoT connectivity and Ceva Bluetooth 5.3 and 5.4 IPs are already in production with LE Audio support. These products were also among the earliest products to qualify for Auracast compatibility. Accurate and secure ranging through channel sounding is now available and next-generation Bluetooth HDT offers multi-channel lossless audio streaming quality, much better than Bluetooth Classic, with all the benefits of Bluetooth LE.
For IoT connectivity through 802.15.4, Links200 optionally includes all the MAC and Modem functionality, handling Zigbee, Thread, and Matter compliance in the same platform. All these functions are managed by an integrated RISC-V processor handling low-level control and stack functions.
The integrated RF provides a complete Bluetooth and 802.15.4 RF transceiver, designed in TSMC's advanced FinFET 12nm FFC+ process for lower power, high performance (High Data Throughput up to 7.5Mbps) and low leakage. The design uses an all-digital PLL, further reducing power, also providing improved phase control which is critical to channel sounding accuracy. Equally important, this RF includes a class 1.5 power amplifier so all that remains for an integrator is to connect that output to an antenna. This class of amplifier is now a common IoT connectivity requirement for hearables since signals must be able to handle attenuation through the body from an earbud to a phone in your pocket.
An important consideration in any multi-protocol communications system is to smoothly manage coexistence between traffic in different protocols. Links200 includes a smart co-existence mechanism to provide this support through complex scenarios between Bluetooth Classic, Bluetooth LE, HDT and 802.15.4.
Host Integration
The turnkey communications system comes packaged with RTL files, firmware, and the radio platform (GDSII), plus a complete software framework to run on a host MCU. Truly a drop-in solution for your IoT connectivity in your smart edge AIoT SoC product.
In addition to the core functions of this integrated communications system, it is worth remembering that Ceva also supplies several software packages for Bluetooth which are highly complementary to the applications you may be considering. These include:
- RealSpace, a spatial audio solution combining 3D audio rendering and low latency head tracking
- The Bluetooth host stack including multiple profiles such as A2DP, HFP, Ranging, and full support of LE Audio and Auracast
- ClearVox for noise reduction and keyword identification
- MotionEngine, for tap, in-ear detection and activity classification
- A comprehensive list of audio codecs including SBC, MP3, AAC+, LC3, LC3Plus, etc
And if you need help running an AI model, Ceva also offers its NeuPro-Nano NPU as a self-sufficient core to run Embedded ML algorithms.
You can read more about this breakthrough IoT connectivity platform in this press release and learn more about the Links200 communications system at this webpage.