Looking for a Programmable SoC with BLE? Check out the Cypress PSoC 4 BLE

From kick-starting a project to production, Cypress PSoC modules are a good choice for any ultra low power application requiring BLE. PSoC® 4 is packaged with ARM® Cortex^™-M0 CPU as core architecture which combines programmable and reconfigurable analog and digital blocks with flexible automatic routing. The hardware components are configurable through the PSoC Creator Design Environment.

Cypress CY8CKIT-042-BLE comes with a complete evaluation kit. It consists of BLE Pioneer Baseboard, preloaded with CY8CKIT-142 PSoC 4 BLE module, CY5671 PRoC BLE Module and, CY5670 – CySmart USB Dongle (BLE Dongle) for development and debugging.

Features

• 32-bit MCU Subsystem
• Programmable Analog
• Programmable Digital
• Low Power 1.71 to 5.5 V Operation
• Capacitive Sensing
• Segment LCD Drive
• Serial Communication
• Timing and Pulse-Width Modulation
• USB Full-Speed Controller
• CAN (controller area network) Controller
• Package Options
• PSoC Creator Design Environment

PSoC 4 BLE devices are now in production with:

• 256 KB/128 KB Flash and 32 KB/16 KB SRAM
• All new Bluetooth 4.2 features
  • Enhanced security with LE Secure Connections
  • Power-efficient privacy with LL Privacy 1.2
  • Up to 2.6x higher throughput with LE Data Length Extension
• Direct Memory Access (DMA) to access SRAM without CPU intervention

Software Development Environment

PSoC Creator comes with an IDE for drag-and-drop programmable digital blocks. This greatly helps the developers in configuring the hardware components, code segment and layout for pin configuration, clock and analog components. Programmable digital blocks are hardware blocks like Universal Digital Blocks, Serial Communication Blocks (SCBs) and TCPWMs that can be configured using PSoC Creator to implement custom digital peripherals and glue logic.

How to Get Started

Here are some of the resources that you can use to get started with Cypress PSoC 4 BLE.

• Watch the Bluetooth Low Energy Pioneer Kit video
• Download PSoC Creator
• Buy the Bluetooth Low Energy Pioneer Kit (CY8CKIT-042-BLE).
• Read the Quick Start Guide
• Watch the PSoC 4 BLE 101 Video Series for tutorials on how to design with PSoC 4 BLE

Datasheet & Additional Resources 

• PSoC 4 Datasheet
• Getting Started with BLE by O’Reilly  – This book covers the complete architecture of BLE and “getting started” applications.
• Official Link for the Kit and complete details

Its Your Turn Now

Get the CY8CKIT-042-BLE and start building your first BLE-based project. Follow 100 Examples Built using PSoC 4 to get access to a GitHub repository that will jumpstart your development.It has project guides and complete source code for 100 projects that can be built with PSoC 4 BLE and is split into small sub-projects which you can complete within a day. Try it out and please share your experiences in comments.