Launched at its developers conference last year, Silicon Labs’ FG25 sub-GHz SoC is now available for smart cities and long-range deployments.

“We are pleased to announce that it is generally available through Silicon Labs and our distribution partners,” said Chad Steider, the Texas firm’s senior product marketing manager.

The SoC (system on chip) is for long-range, low-power transmissions, capable of broadcasting up to 3km with minimal data loss in dense, urban canyon environments when coupled with the firm’s EFF01 front end module. It is also the first SoC in its portfolio to support the orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) modulations introduced in Wi-Sun Field Area Network (FAN) 1.1.

OFDM supports data bandwidth up to 3.6Mbit/s. With the higher data rates, the SoC enables the large networks needed by smart cities where the nodes can number in the thousands.

“We’re also pleased to announce that we have been certified by the Wi-Sun Alliance for the phy layer of the FAN 1.1 profile,” said Steider. “Customers can leverage this certification to lower the burden placed on them as they design Wi-Sun FAN 1.1 compliant devices.

Landis+Gyr had used the FG12 SoC running its proprietary stack but, because Wi-Sun is an open network, it offers increased interoperability and simplified development, meaning it can scale to match the massive size of a city.

And while the FG12 helped Landis+Gyr reduce power consumption of its devices, it didn’t have the RAM needed for Wi-Sun and OFDM.

By moving to the FG25 Wi-Sun SoC, Landis+Gyr can increases the performance of its application and gives its customers a smooth Wi-Sun transition because the FG25 runs the proprietary stack as well. With both the MCU and transceiver on the same chip, the FG25 uses the same form factor as Landis+Gyr’s existing module, simplifying the development and design process to integrate the new SoC.