Ceva Bluetooth Low Energy and 802.15.4 IP Brings Ultra-Low-Power Wireless Connectivity to Alif Semiconductor's Balletto Family of MCUs

Balletto Bluetooth 5.3 LE and Matter Wireless MCU Family with Neural Coprocessor for AI/ML Workloads in Wireless Audio and Smart Home

Ceva, a leading licensor of semiconductor products and software IP that enable intelligent edge devices to more reliably and efficiently connect, sense and infer data, announced that Alif Semiconductor®, a leading supplier of secure, connected and power-efficient artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) microcontrollers (MCUs) and fusion processors, has licensed Ceva-Waves Bluetooth Low Energy and 802.15.4 IP for its Balletto™ family of wireless microcontrollers.

The Balletto series is a complete edge AI/ML microcontroller solution for connected IoT platforms, integrating low-power Bluetooth 5.3 and 802.15.4 wireless subsystems and dedicated network coprocessors, achieving connectivity and industry-leading machine learning performance in a single chip. Compared with traditional MCUs that lack neural coprocessors, the machine learning performance and inference efficiency of the Balletto series MCUs can be improved by up to 50 times, opening up a new field for battery-powered EdgeML applications. Ceva-Waves low-power Bluetooth IP provides Balletto MCUs with powerful connectivity with ultra-low power consumption, and supports Bluetooth LE Audio and Auracast broadcast audio, suitable for customers who intend to use Balletto to create highly differentiated wireless audio products. The Balletto series also supports Thread, Zigbee and Matter in smart home applications through Ceva-Waves 802.15.4 IP.

“Our Balletto family of connected, intelligent MCUs is tailor-made to meet the growing demand for AI/ML workloads in battery-powered devices,” said Mark Rootz, vice president of marketing at Alif Semiconductor . “The Ceva Bluetooth Low Energy and 802.15.4 IPs provide a robust, well-proven connectivity solution for our silicon designs, allowing us to focus our R&D resources on differentiating our MCUs to deliver outstanding performance for the most demanding wireless audio and smart home AI/ML use cases.”

“Wireless connectivity is a fundamental requirement for every smart device, and we are honored to be trusted by Alif Semiconductor and other industry leaders and innovators as their embedded wireless IP provider,” said Tal Shalev, vice president and general manager of Ceva’s Wireless IoT business unit. “Our Bluetooth low energy IP has enabled billions of devices to date, and we are very pleased to work with Alif to deliver robust connectivity and high bitrate audio to its Balletto family of smart MCUs.”

About Ceva-Waves Bluetooth

Ceva-Waves Bluetooth IP Platforms are comprehensive Bluetooth LE and Bluetooth dual-mode connectivity solutions, covering RF, modem, baseband controller, and complete host and profile software stacks. These Bluetooth IP platforms support all the latest features of Bluetooth technology, including AoA/AoD/Direction Finding, LE Audio/Auracast, Periodic Advertising with Response, and other enhancements such as Channel Sounding. It also comes with IEEE 802.15.4 add-ons for Thread, Zigbee, and Matter support. To date, Ceva-Waves Bluetooth IP has shipped more than 4.5 billion devices and has dozens of licensees. In partnership with many of the world's leading semiconductor companies and OEMs, these IP platforms are widely used in a wide range of consumer, automotive, industrial, medical, and IoT devices, including smartphones, tablets, beacons, wireless speakers, wireless headphones and earbuds, hearing aids, and other wearable devices.

Ceva-Waves Bluetooth IP is part of Ceva-Waves’ unique and broad family of wireless connectivity IP platforms, which also includes Ceva-Waves Wi-Fi, UWB, NB-IoT and Links multiprotocol platforms. For more information, please visit the company’s webpage: https://www.ceva-ip.com/app/connectivity/.