After the release of Apollo510, Ambiq has released Apollo510B, an ultra-low power Edge AI MCU that adds a 48 MHz network coprocessor for Bluetooth 5.4 LE (BLE) support. The new SoC combines Cortex-M55 with Helium MVE for AI/ML acceleration, secureSPOT 3.0 security, and graphiqSPOT 2.0 graphics for connected wearables, healthcare devices, and industrial IoT applications. The Apollo510B features 3.75MB of system RAM, 4MB of non-volatile memory, and a 12-bit ADC. It supports MIPI DSI and Quad SPI interfaces for displays, and offers audio capabilities such as always-on low-power ADC, a PDM stereo microphone interface, and dual multichannel I²S ports with asynchronous sample rate conversion. Peripheral options extend to USB 2.0 HS/FS, dual SDIO/eMMC controllers, multiple SPI and I²C masters, UART interfaces with flow control, and various GPIOs. Ambiq Apollo510B specifications: MCU Core Arm Cortex-M55 core at up to 250 MHz with Helium (MVE) vector instructions, FPU, TrustZone, MPU Caches/TCM – […]
Ambiq Apollo330 Plus SoC Series Cortex-M55 MCU family offers optional Bluetooth 5.4 LE and 802.15.4 radios
Ambiq Apollo330 Plus SoC Series is a new family of ultra-low-power, sub-threshold Arm Cortex-M55 microcontrollers with optional Bluetooth 5.4 LE and 802.15.4 radios for IoT and Smart Home applications. The Ambiq Apollo330 Plus MCU itself appears to be a cost-down version of the Ambiq Apollo510 general-purpose Cortex-M55 MCU introduced last year, with the removal of display and graphics support, lower RAM and NVM capacities (2MB/2MB vs. 3.75MB/4MB), and fewer I/Os, but with a wider 1.71 to 3.63V voltage supply range. Two other SKUs add wireless: the Apollo330B Plus includes a Bluetooth 5.4 LE radio, and the Apollo330M Plus an extra 802.15.4 radio for Zigbee, Thread, and Matter as a multiprotocol SoC. Ambiq Apollo330 Plus specifications: CPU Core – 32-bit Arm Cortex-M55 @ 96 MHz / 250 MHz (turboSPOT) with Helium technology, Network coprocessor Memory- 2MB SRAM Storage 2MB NVM SDIO v3.0 and eMMC flash controllers Wireless Arm Cortex-M4F network processor […]
Ambiq Apollo510 Arm Cortex-M55 MCU delivers up to 30x better power efficiency for AI/ML workloads
Ambiq Apollo510 Arm Cortex-M55 microcontroller delivers 30 times better power efficiency than typical Cortex-M4 designs and 10 times the performance of the Apollo4 Cortex-M4 sub-threshold microcontroller for AI and ML workloads. The new MCU also comes with 4MB NVM, 3.75MB SRAM, a 2.5D GPU with vector graphics acceleration that’s 3.5 times faster than the Apollo4 Plus, and support for low-power Memory-in-Pixel (MiP) displays. Like all other Ambiq microcontrollers, the Apollo510 operates at sub-threshold voltage for ultra-low power consumption and implements security with the company’s secureSPOT platform with Arm TrustZone technology. Ambiq Apollo510 specifications: MCU Core – Arm Cortex-M55 core up to 250 MHz with Arm Helium MVE, Arm TrustZone, FPU, MPU, 64KB I-cache, 64KB D-cache, 256KB I-TCM (Tighly Coupled Memory), 256KB D-TCM, Graphics – 2.5D GPU clocked at 96 MHz or 250 MHz with vector graphics acceleration, anti-aliasing hardware acceleration, rasterizer/full alpha blending/texture mapping, texture/framebuffer compression (TSC4, 6, 6A and […]
RAKwireless open sources RUI3 multi-target IoT development platform
RAKwireless has made its RUI3 IoT software development platform open-source so that customers or users can implement “nice-to-have” features on top of the features already implemented by the company which could make it even more versatile in a wider range of IoT scenarios. Introduced in 2022, the RAK Unified Interface v3, or RUI3 for shorts, is a modular IoT platform based on the Arduino SDK with additional functions for IoT connectivity and low power that supports a variety of devices and applications. So developers can learn the language, code once, and use the same software on multiple WisBlock core platforms including Nordic Semi nRF52, STM32, ESP32, and Raspberry Pi RP2040 instead of having to juggle between different the Arduino BSP, the ESP-IDF framework, Nordic nRF Connect SDK, or Raspberry Pi C SDK. Users could already use the RUI3 firmware with the RAK3172 (STM32), RAK4630/RAK4631 (nRF52), or RAK11720 (Apollo3) WisBlock Core […]
WisDuo RAK11720 LoRaWAN & Bluetooth LE module features Ambiq Apollo3 Blue low-power MCU
RAKwireless WisDuo RAK11720 is a LoRaWAN and Bluetooth LE (module) equipped with Ambiq Apollo3 ultra-low-power BLE 5.0 microcontroller and a Semtech SX1262 LoRa transceiver. The Wisduo RAK11720 is pin-to-pin compatible with the STM32WL-based Wisduo RAK3172 LoRaWAN module, and provides an easy upgrade path for IoT applications that require Bluetooth LE connectivity and more memory. WisDuo RAK11720 specifications: MCU – Ambiq Apollo3 Blue AMA3B1KK-KBR-B0 Arm Cortex-M4F microcontroller locked at up to 96 MHz with 1MB flash, 348 SRAM, Bluetooth LE 5.0, and an active power consumption of less than < 6 μA/ MHz LoRa Semtech SX1262 sub-GHz radio transceivers LoRaWAN 1.0.3 specification compliant Supported bands: EU433, CN470, IN865, EU868, AU915, US915, KR920, RU864, and AS923-1/2/3/4 LoRaWAN activation via OTAA/ABP LoRa Point-to-Point (P2P) communication Long-range – greater than 15 km with optimized antenna Antennas – 2x IPEX antenna connectors or RF pads for LoRa and Bluetooth I/O expansion – UART, I2C, SPI, […]
MicroMod modular ecosystem offers M.2 microcontrollers cards and carrier boards
MicroMod is a modular interface ecosystem for quick embedded development and prototyping. MicroMod comes with two components, that is a microcontroller “processor board” and a carrier board. PC industry’s M.2 connector is the interface between these two components. The carrier boards are for the usage of various peripherals and the processor board act as the brain of the application system. MicroMod processor board has a dimension of 22×22 mm that can be easily fitted on the carrier boards. Although, the original M.2 standard was dedicated to swapping out peripherals where a user could swap one component with the other one. The MicroMod standard is for swapping out microcontrollers according to the functional and application requirements. MicroMod Processor Boards Artemis Processor Board comes with an Ambiq Apollo 3 Blue Arm Cortex-M4F with BLE 5.0 running up to 96MHz and a power rating of less than 5mW. It also supports the TensorFlow […]
3µA/MHz Ambiq Apollo 4 MCU Targets Battery-powered IoT Devices with Voice Processing
Ambiq Micro is using sub-threshold voltages under 0.5V to offer ultra-low-power Arm microcontrollers. In 2015, the company launch the Apollo Cortex-M4F MCU with 30µA/MHz power consumption in active mode, which was followed in 2016 by Apollo 2 in consuming just 10µA/MHz, and Apollo 3 (Blue) dropped power consumption to as low as 6µA/MHz against using a Cortex-M4F @ 48 MHz in active mode. The fourth generation of ultra-low-power Apollo microcontroller has now been announced with Apollo 4 and Apollo 4 Blue microcontrollers – the latter adding Bluetooth – halving the power consumption of Apollo 3 at just 3µA/MHz, or ten times less than the original ultra-low-power MCU from the company. Apollo 4 (Blue) specifications and key features: MCU Core – Arm Cortex-M4F core up to 192 MHz (TurboSPOT) with FPU, Memory Protection Unit (MPU), and Secure Boot GPU – 2D/2.5D graphics accelerator with full alpha blending, texture and frame buffer […]
$15 Sparkfun Edge Board Supports Tensorflow Lite for Microcontrollers
The 2019 TensorFlow Dev Summit is now taking place, and we’ve already covered the launch of Google’s Coral Edge TPU dev board and USB accelerator supporting TensorFlow Lite, but there has been another interesting new development during the event: TensorFlow Lite now also supports microcontrollers (MCU), instead of the more powerful application processors. You can easily get started with Tensorflow Lite for MCU with SparkFun Edge development board powered by Ambiq Micro Apollo3 Blue Bluetooth MCU whose ultra-efficient Arm Cortex-M4F core can run TensorFlow Lite using only 6uA/MHz. SparkFun Edge specifications: MCU – Ambiq Micro Apollo3 Blue 32-bit Arm Cortex-M4F processor at 48MHz / 96MHz (TurboSPOT) with DMA, 1MB flash, 384 KB SRAM, 6uA/MHz power usage, Bluetooth support. Connectivity – Bluetooth LE 5 (on-chip) + Bluetooth antenna Camera – OV7670 camera connector Audio – 2x MEMS microphones with operational amplifier Sensor – STMicro LIS2DH12 3-axis accelerometer Expansion – Qwiic connector, […]






