Ambiq Apollo3 Blue Low Power System-on-Chips
Ambiq Apollo3 Blue Low Power System-on-Chips (SoCs) are an ultra-low power, highly integrated microcontroller solution based on the Ambiq patented Subthreshold Power Optimized Technology (SPOT®). The SoC is developed for battery-powered and portable mobile devices. The Apollo3 Blue SoC offers excellent energy efficiency for battery-powered applications with an integrated Arm® Cortex®-M4 processor, including a Floating Point Unit and turboSPOT®. These features increase the computational capabilities of the Arm Cortex-M4F core to 96MHz while lowering the active power consumption to <6μA/MHz. This combination dramatically reduces energy consumption while still allowing abundant application processing power to add more significant capability and extended life to battery-operated devices.
The Ambiq Apollo3 Blue Low Power SoC brings several unique features to Ambiq’s SPOT-based Apollo SoC Family, including an integrated DMA engine, QSPI interface, and advanced stepper motor control for ultra-low power analog watch hand management. With unprecedented energy efficiency and PDM microphone inputs, the Apollo3 Blue also forms the core of Ambiq’s Voice-on-SPOT® reference platform. This platform is ideal for users who want to add always-on voice assistant integration and command recognition to battery-powered products. To increase design flexibility and facilitate connections to the phone and cloud, the Apollo3 Blue delivers a dedicated second core for the ultra-low power BLUETOOTH® Low Energy 5 connectivity platform, supplying superior RF throughput and leaving plenty of resources available for user applications.
Features
- Ultra-low supply current
- 6μA/MHz executing from FLASH or RAM at 3.3V
- Low-power sleep and deep sleep modes with selectable levels of RAM/cache retention
- High-performance ARM Cortex-M4 processor
- 48MHz nominal clock frequency, with 96MHz high performance TurboSPOT Mode
- Floating point unit
- Memory protection unit
- Wake-up interrupt controller with 32x interrupts
- Integrated BLUETOOTH 5 low-energy controller
- RF sensitivity of -93dBm (typical)
- TX peak output power of 3dBm (maximum)
- Ultra-low power memory
- Up to 1MB of flash memory for code/data
- Up to 384KB of low latency/leakage SRAM for code/data
- 16KB 2-way Associative/Direct-Mapped cache
- Ultra-low power interface for on- and off-chip sensors
- 14-bit ADC at up to 1.2MS/s, 15x selectable input channels
- Voltage comparator
- Temperature sensor with ±3°C accuracy after calibration IS07816 Secure interface
- Flexible serial peripherals
- 1x 2/4/8-bit SPI master interface (MSPI)
- 6x l2C/SPI masters for peripheral communication
- I2C/SPI slave for host communications
- 2x UART modules with 32-location TX and RX FIFOs
- PDM for mono and stereo audio microphone
- 1x l2S slave for PDM audio pass-through
- Rich set of clock sources
- 32.768kHz XTAL oscillator
- Low-frequency RC oscillator of 1.024kHz
- High-frequency RC oscillator of 48MHz/96MHz
- RTC based on Ambiq's AM08X5/18X5 families
- Wide operating range of 1.755V to 3.63V, -40 to +85°C
- Compact package of 5mm x 5mm (<0.5mm thick pkg) 81-pin BGA with 50x GPIOs
Applications
- Voice-on-SPOT compatible for always-listening keyword detection, audio command recognition, and voice assistant integration in battery-powered devices, including:
- BLUETOOTH headsets, earbuds, and truly wireless earbuds
- Remote and gaming controls
- Smart home
- Wearables, including smartwatches and fitness/activity trackers
- Hearing aids, digital health monitoring and sensing devices, smart home automation, security and lighting control applications
Associated Products
Ambiq Apollo3 Blue Plus System-on-Chip
Offers ultra-low power in a highly integrated SoC platform based on Ambiq's patented SPOT®.
Associated Board
Ambiq Apollo3 Blue Plus Evaluation Board
Implements the Apollo3 Blue Plus for battery-powered apps requiring sensor and data measurement.
Ambiq Apollo3 Blue Evaluation Board
Ideal for battery-powered applications and is based on the Apollo3 Blue SoC in the BGA package.
Additional Resources
Block Diagram
