Ceva, a California-based licensor of wireless connectivity and smart sensing technologies, has unveiled RivieraWaves UWB, an ultra-wideband (UWB) turnkey mac and phy platform.

The IP complies with IEEE 802.15.4z and is in accordance with FiRa Consortium specifications. The platform delivers secure, centimetre-level accuracy and location information through time-of-flight (ToF) ranging and angle-of-arrival (AoA) processing.

Extending Ceva’s wireless connectivity portfolio for IoT devices, the IP is suitable for low-power applications and products such as tags for pinpoint asset finding, secure digital key functionality for door locks, real-time location services (RTLS) and payment systems.

UWB is experiencing growth fuelled by its recent adoption in leading smartphone brands, with ABI Research forecasting annual shipments of nearly a billion devices by 2025.

Aimed at lowering the entry barrier and accelerating time to market for semiconductor and IoT companies looking to develop UWB-enabled devices, RivieraWaves UWB IP consists of a power-optimised hardware phy with a flexible, low latency hardware and software mac layer.

The mac layer software can be implemented on the Ceva-BX1 DSP when deployed with other connectivity workloads or modes such as direction finding, localisation or radar, or as a standalone UWB mac on commercial Arm and Risc-V MCUs. A flexible radio interface enables the IP to be deployed with users’ own RF technology or with Ceva partners’ RF IP.

Furthermore, the platform is designed for low-power use-cases, offering performance and cost-efficiency, particularly when combined with RivieraWaves Bluetooth IP. This combined IP offering addresses emerging applications and use cases that leverage both standards.

“Demand for UWB technology is at an all-time high, driven by emerging use cases in smartphones, accessories and other consumer and IoT devices,” said Ange Aznar, vice president at Ceva. “Our new RivieraWaves UWB platform IP addresses this burgeoning market by offering a licensable solution that lowers the entry barrier for companies looking to leverage this technology in their chip designs. As the only company capable of providing a combined UWB and Bluetooth licensable product, we have extended our industry-leadership position as the world’s foremost developer and licensor of wireless connectivity IP.”

Feature include:

• Mac and phy with support of enhanced ranging and security based on IEEE 802.15.4z HRP in accordance with FiRa Consortium requirements
• Low power hardware phy, implementing a high sensitivity coherent receiver with power optimised synchronisation, supporting centimetre-level accuracy ranging and AoA estimation based on multiple antennas
• Portable mac layer software, with hardware offloading for encryption and authentication (CCM AES), key management, autonomous ACK handshaking, and other real-time critical operations
• Flexible low-power modes applicable to FiRa ranging scenarios
• FiRa UWB command interface (UCI) simplifies the interface to the application-level software
• Flexible digital radio interface, designed to accommodate various radios
• Available as a standalone UWB IP or in combination with RivieraWaves Bluetooth platform IP