CEVA expands its wireless connectivity portfolio with new Ultra-Wideband platform IP

CEVA, Inc., a licensor of wireless connectivity and smart sensing technologies, today unveiled RivieraWaves™ UWB, an ultra-wideband (UWB) turnkey MAC and PHY platform intellectual property (IP) compliant with the IEEE 802.15.4z standard and in accordance with the FiRa consortium specifications. The RivieraWaves UWB platform IP is claimed to deliver secure, centimeter-level accuracy and robust location information through Time-of-Flight (ToF) ranging and Angle-of-Arrival (AoA) processing. Extending CEVA’s wireless connectivity IP portfolio for IoT devices, the new RivieraWaves UWB platform IP is said to be suitable for a broad range of ultra-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.

CEVA suggests that UWB is experiencing explosive growth fueled by its recent adoption in leading smartphone brands, with ABI Research forecasting annual shipments of nearly 1 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, the RivieraWaves UWB platform IP consists of a power-optimized hardware PHY along with a flexible, low latency hardware and software MAC layer. The MAC layer software can be implemented on the CEVA-BX1 DSP when deployed in combination with other connectivity workloads or modes such as direction finding, localization or radar, or as a standalone UWB MAC on commercial Arm and RISC-V MCUs. A flexible radio interface enables the RivieraWaves UWB platform IP to be deployed with customers’ own RF technology or with CEVA partners’ RF IP. Furthermore, RivieraWaves UWB platform IP is designed for ultra-low power use-cases, with CEVA claiming that it offers “best-in-class performance and cost-efficiency, particularly when combined with RivieraWaves Bluetooth IP”.