description
- The demand for wireless sensors in healthcare and lifestyle areas is experiencing rapid growth. Such applications call for radio links which have to fulfil several stringent requirements, such as: standardized connectivity for plug-and-play interconnection with other devices; ultra-portability with tiny modules for maximal comfort for the wearer; ultra-low-power consumption for long autonomy; and flexibility for being easily embedded with a heterogeneous set of other components like sensors, signal processors, energy harvesters. The BLIM4SME project addresses these challenges by developing an ultra-low-power Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE or Bluetooth Smart) module focussing on healthcare and lifestyle. BLE is currently addressed by large semiconductor industries, in the form of complex systems-on-chip (SoC) which aim at covering many applicative areas, but their excessive versatility makes them non-optimal for those applications where ultra-portability and ultra-low-power are mandatory. Therefore, BLIM4SME aims at developing an optimized solution targeting the rapidly increasing landscape of EU SME’s and industries that require beyond state-of-the-art, highly integrated and ultra-low-power BLE radios for their next generation bio-medical, healthcare, sports and fitness products. Concretely, the project will develop RF IP blocks which will be embedded into a single “antenna-and-radio” miniaturized chip leveraging an innovative “integrated passive devices” (IPD) technology platform. The outcome will be a BLE module yielding a factor of at least 5 times better “power-size” figure of merit compared to today’s leading industrial solutions.