I don't immediately see a picture of the actual chip to get a reference size bybitself, that that chip inside the tooth is pretty wild. I wonder how you would even begin to power electronics within such a space. Or perhaps this is more of a marketing level of graphics.
The second link isn't exactly forthcoming on the battery technology used, but at least says:
> and its power consumption is low enough that the device can last from six months to a year on a battery of the equivalent size
The average "width" of the first mandibular molar from this article[1] is 5.1-5.2mm. It sure would be interesting to see a CAD model of the design inside the module on the band. The graphics from the posted article vs. the first link above are also a bit different, making it even harder to infer much I think.
"The battery/power supply alone is going to be at least an order of magnitude larger in volume."
Indeed, people do use rechargeable lithium batteries like the 50mAh CR322 (22mm by 3mm) or smaller CR311, but these would only be able to handle a 11mA EFR32BG29 output load for a few hours at most... Yet in a mostly dormant power save mode YMMV =3
if we're talking about a device that only needs centimeters worth of range and spends most of its time in deep sleep, those 50mA could last quite a while.
And would last a whole lot longer if the BLE manufacturers would pull their heads out of their asses and give us a chip with RTC wakeup current that doesn't suck.
Is this not just a worse version of the nRF52 and nRF54 lineup? Larger size, fewer hardware peripherals, lower radio sensitivity. What is the new thing for this chip?
Compared to nRF52840(same ram/flash/packaging), this is nearly a millimeter smaller x/y, 3dB better sensitivity, 2.5x faster ADC sample rate(but who knows what that means with a +8dBm radio firing near it), and hopefully not botched readout protection. No USB though, big deal for some.
I'm not familiar enough with the nRF54 series, but it's good to have a few competitors in this space.
25 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 63.3 ms ] thread> The BG29 chips will be available in 5 mm × 5 mm QFN and 2.6 mm × 2.8 mm WLCSP form factors
That "wireless oral health monitor" example is a concept from Lura Health[1] that integrates a marginally smaller BG27 (2.3mm x 2.6mm WLCSP)[2].
[1] https://lurahealth.com
[2] https://www.silabs.com/applications/case-studies/small-bluet...
> and its power consumption is low enough that the device can last from six months to a year on a battery of the equivalent size
The average "width" of the first mandibular molar from this article[1] is 5.1-5.2mm. It sure would be interesting to see a CAD model of the design inside the module on the band. The graphics from the posted article vs. the first link above are also a bit different, making it even harder to infer much I think.
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5502574/
The battery/power supply alone is going to be at least an order of magnitude larger in volume.
Indeed, people do use rechargeable lithium batteries like the 50mAh CR322 (22mm by 3mm) or smaller CR311, but these would only be able to handle a 11mA EFR32BG29 output load for a few hours at most... Yet in a mostly dormant power save mode YMMV =3
Microcrystal can make these things to run at <50nA. https://www.microcrystal.com/en/products/real-time-clock-rtc...
All the BLE manufacturers are 1uA plus. It's infuriating.
A trace at the circumference of the PCB, or a wire antenna that only take up space for the solder joint would do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_antenna
Six of them fit on the face of a dime, which is wild.
[1] The world's smallest Bluetooth® Low Energy Module, the new model "HY0021":
https://www.fdk.com/whatsnew-e/release20241021-e.html
I'm not familiar enough with the nRF54 series, but it's good to have a few competitors in this space.