IN Brief:
- BG2B combines an 80MHz Cortex-M33 with Bluetooth 6, up to 1MB flash, and 128kB RAM.
- Integrated CAN FD, dual 12-bit ADCs, LED drivers, and dual-output DC-DC conversion reduce external circuitry.
- Channel Sounding and Secure Vault High target ranging, access, diagnostics, tracking, and regulated connected products.
Silicon Labs has introduced the EFR32BG2B Bluetooth 6 system-on-chip family, combining low-power wireless connectivity with Channel Sounding, CAN FD, integrated LED control, dual analogue-to-digital converters, and hardware-based security. The device is aimed at battery-powered industrial, vehicle, access, tracking, and electronic-shelf-label designs.
BG2B uses an 80MHz Arm Cortex-M33 processor with up to 1MB of flash and 128kB of RAM. Silicon Labs describes it as its lowest-power Bluetooth Low Energy SoC to date, quoting an EM2 current of approximately 1.1µA with 16kB of RAM retained alongside reduced active and radio currents.
A dual-output DC-DC converter is central to that power claim. Conventional arrangements may generate one rail efficiently while the digital core remains supplied through a less efficient low-dropout regulator. BG2B adds a second switching output for the digital domain, reducing conversion losses across both the radio and processing sections.
Battery life is determined by an operating profile rather than one sleep-current number. Radio transmission, processor wake time, sensor sampling, ranging operations, memory retention, and external loads all contribute to average consumption, so designers will still need to model their own duty cycles and battery behaviour.
Bluetooth Channel Sounding provides distance estimation through the Bluetooth radio rather than requiring a separate ultra-wideband device. BG2B supports Mode 3, normalised attack-detection metrics, and a design prepared for inline phase-continuity testing. Silicon Labs is targeting compatibility with Apple and Google Channel Sounding requirements, which could reduce fragmentation for tags, digital keys, and access products expected to work across major smartphone ecosystems.
The company plans to support the silicon with a royalty-free distance-measurement algorithm, software tools, reference designs, and engineering assistance. That surrounding material is important because ranging performance is influenced by antenna design, orientation, body blocking, reflections, multipath, and enclosure materials. A compliant radio does not guarantee dependable distance estimates in a finished product.
For industrial and commercial-vehicle systems, BG2B integrates CAN FD with Bluetooth Low Energy. The combination allows a wireless service, diagnostic, or monitoring interface to communicate with a wired equipment bus without adding a separate CAN controller or bridge device. Isolation, transceiver selection, and vehicle-network security remain external design responsibilities.
Electronic shelf labels and compact indicators gain an integrated LED boost converter and four-channel LED current sink. Those blocks can drive visual alerts and multicolour indicators while reducing external driver circuitry. Dual 12-bit ADCs also allow two analogue signals to be sampled concurrently, which is useful where relative phase, timing, or simultaneous measurements matter more than slowly scanning several channels through one converter.
The security implementation is based on Secure Vault High, including a root of trust, secure boot, isolated key management, controlled debug, anti-tamper features, and differential-power-analysis countermeasures. Silicon Labs says BG2B is designed for PSA Level 3, positioning the family for connected products that must protect credentials, firmware, and field-update processes as regulatory security requirements tighten.
Integration reduces component count, but it also concentrates more product functions in one device. A flaw in the SoC, wireless stack, or security subsystem can affect communications, ranging, diagnostics, and application control simultaneously. Long-lived industrial products will therefore depend on errata management, secure update support, and stable software maintenance as much as on the initial silicon specification.
Silicon Labs has not provided a firm production-shipment date, describing the family as forthcoming. Developers can assess the architecture and intended feature set, but volume availability and final production documentation remain unresolved.
BG2B reflects a broader shift in Bluetooth design from a radio added to a product towards a controller that absorbs wired interfaces, analogue acquisition, LED functions, ranging, and security. Its value will be measured by whether that consolidation reduces power, board area, and validation effort without narrowing designers’ options when a production application departs from the reference design.
