Sequans Communications S.A. announced that its second-generation LTE Cat 1 chip platform, Calliope 2, will soon be sampling. Calliope 2 is designed for the cost-effective support of IoT applications that require VoLTE and a data rate higher than 100 kilobits per second that cannot be supported by LTE-M or NB-IoT technologies.
Typical Calliope 2 applications include wearables and hearables with music streaming and voice support, and smart city/smart home IoT devices such as security cameras, alarm panels, and utility metres, needing high throughput, and data aggregators where speed of up to several megabits per second may be required.
Advancements in Sequans Calliope 2 technology remove the cost and power consumption barriers that have thus far inhibited widespread deployment of Cat 1 for IoT.
These advancements include:
1) higher integration that has lowered the Cat 1 module cost closer to the level of LTE-M module cost.
2) significantly improved power consumption, in both active and low power modes, lowering the power profile close to the LTE-M power profile, and thereby significantly extending the battery life of Cat 1 IoT devices.
“Calliope 2 is a truly universal and highly effective IoT solution and we are excited about the many new IoT applications that are being built because of it,” says Georges Karam, Sequans CEO. “Calliope 2 complements our Monarch 2 LTE-M/NB-IoT product family and makes Sequans a one-stop shop for virtually all IoT applications—ranging from simple low speed sensor devices to higher speed security cameras, and from low-power, battery-operated consumer devices to sophisticated, higher speed industrial devices.”
In addition to cost and power improvements, Calliope 2 delivers advanced features such as an EAL5+ secure enclave for ieUICC, and integrated VoLTE with support for emergency voice calling and streaming audio.
Calliope 2 is 5G-ready, compliant with the 3GPP Release 15 massive IoT standard. Its user application software and interfaces are compatible with Sequans’ Monarch 2 LTE-M/NB-IoT platform, allowing easy migration among Cat 1, LTE-M, and NB-IoT massive IoT technologies. Cat 1 networks are today available worldwide, enabling Calliope 2 to support any IoT application or device, even in those regions where LTE-M is not yet available.
Calliope 2 feature highlights
- 3GPP Release 15
- Up to 10 Mbps DL, and 5 Mbps UL
- Interfaces include USB 2.0, 4xHS-UART, SPI, PCM/I2S
- Advanced low power features eDRX and PSM with rock bottom at 1µA
- Comprehensive VoLTE voice engine including HD-quality voice (EVS)
- Baseband, RF, power management and memory integrated in one chip platform
- Compatible with Sequans Monarch 2 LTE-M/NB-IoT platform for easy migration among Cat 1, Cat M, Cat NB1/NB2
- EAL5+ security for iSIM
- Streaming audio
“Sequans pioneered Cat 1 technology for IoT and has always recognised its value,” said Karam. “We are the only cellular IoT chipmaker with a strategic product roadmap for Cat 1, and we have designed our Calliope 2 platform to be scalable and in sync with the sunsetting of 2G and 3G networks, thereby answering a key industry demand at just the right time. There are real and valuable opportunities in Cat 1 for IoT, complementing LTE-M/NB-IoT, and Calliope 2 is the ideal starting point.”
See Sequans online next week at CES 2021, January 11-14.
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