Dolphin Design has teamed with fabless chip designer Orca Systems to develop a highly integrated wireless system-on-chip (SoC) to provide Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity over satellite.
Orca’s RF satellite chip includes a power management unit (PMU) based on Dolphin Design’s full suite of power management IPs tailored for ultra-low power applications such as Satellite IoT endpoint SoC and other power-sensitive SoC devices for direct-to-satellite and other industrial applications.
The race for satellite IoT connectivity for everything from shipping container and pallet tracking to livestock tracking and smart agriculture is starting to heat up, but it requires meeting challenges around performance, power consumption, price, and size.
Orca’s RF SoC integrates all required system functions, including RF transceiver, digital modem, CPUs, and power management, for satellite IoT connectivity in a small package that can operate with a couple of AA batteries for up to 10 years.
A key part of the ORC3990 RF SoC is the power management unit (PMU) subsystem provided by Dolphin Design. This includes all the analog blocks, such as a low-frequency crystal oscillator, a switching regulator, two linear regulators, an over-voltage protection module and, a combined power-on and power-off reset.
“We are very pleased to embed Dolphin Design’s IPs inside our SoC product family, including ORC3990, the world’s first fully integrated solution for direct-to-satellite IoT connectivity,” said John McDonough, CEO of Orca Systems. “Our company partners closely with Dolphin Design for the well-known ultra-low-power IPs needed for the satellite industry and our SoC. Their expertise in power management empowers our SoC with the best-in-class low-power performance and This is just the beginning of a great adventure together.”
“At Dolphin Design, our core expertise lies in power management and ultra-low power technologies,” said Hakim Jaafar VP of Marketing and Application. “We aim to provide the best solution to any energy-caring and challenging markets such as consumer and industrial IoT. The close and strong collaboration with ORCA was a mutual benefit for both companies leading to the success of Orca systems’ SoC products”.
Orca has patented digital radio and digital power amplifier (DPA) technology it calls Live Wireless RF digital radio that provides ultra-low power consumption to extend the battery life of IoT devices. Silicon-proven Orca Live Wireless RF digital transceivers are available to select customers as IP cores, known good die (KGD), and packaged integrated circuits.
