Microchip Technology announces RN4870 and RN4871 Bluetooth devices

June 24 2016– Microchip Technology Inc., a provider of microcontroller, mixed-signal, analog and Flash-IP solutions, has announced two Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) solutions with an ASCII-style command interface designed to make the devices easy to configure and eliminate any complicated code compiling. The RN4870 and RN4871 support the latest Bluetooth 4.2 specification and have a Bluetooth stack on board with a scripting engine to enable standalone operation and eliminate microcontroller (MCU) use for simple applications.

The RN4870 and RN4871 devices deliver up to 2.5 times the data throughput improvement over previous generation products based on the Bluetooth 4.0 standard. In addition, the new Bluetooth solutions offer Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) based connection security coupled with advanced features. The devices can transfer serial data over BLE devices and can support different beacon formats like iBeacon or Eddystone via a single command. Both devices with a shield option are certified to meet worldwide regulatory standards and are available with compact package options as small as 6 x 8 mm.

Each module has an on-board software stack and pairs well with any of Microchip's large range of low-power microcontrollers or any microcontroller with a UART interface. The RN4870 and RN4871 are designed to complement Microchip's diverse low-energy solutions designed for IoT applications.