Silicon Labs, a leader in secure, intelligent wireless technology for a more connected world, has officially announced the availability of its MG26 family, containing several cutting-edge wireless SoCs.
According to certain reports, these SOCs are understood to be the most advanced, high-performance Matter and concurrent multiprotocol solution till date. We get to say so because they feature double the Flash and RAM of other Silicon Labs multiprotocol devices, along with advanced AI/ML processing, and best-in-class security to help developers design future-proof Matter applications.
More on that would reveal how MG26 SoC’s multiprotocol capabilities will tread up a long distance to significantly advance Matter adoption. The idea behind doing so is to facilitate integration of various Smart Home and Building devices like LED lighting, switches, sensors, and locks into both Matter and Zigbee networks simultaneously.
Such a setup, on its part, will help users create automations and routines that incorporate more devices across different ecosystem.
Apart from that, MG26’s AI/ML capabilities, using its embedded accelerator, also enhance the technology’s performance in regards to critical tasks like predictive maintenance, anomaly detection, keyword detection, vision, and more applications that span across the IoT.
“With MG26, we’re not just setting a new standard in multiprotocol wireless performance for battery-based, low-power smart home applications—we’re redefining what’s possible for the future of IoT connectivity with Matter,” said Jacob Alamat, Senior Vice President for the Home and Life business unit at Silicon Labs. “This device empowers developers to create smarter, safer, and more powerful solutions in an increasingly connected world.”
Talk about MG26 family on a slightly deeper level, we begin from assortment’s promise to provide higher compute. This it will achieve using a multi-core format with an ARM® Cortex®-M33 CPU and dedicated cores for the radio and security subsystems, thus freeing up the main core for customer applications.
Next up, there is the availability of 2X Flash, RAM, and GPIO capacity, which will allow IoT device builders to develop advanced edge applications that leverage larger, more accurate machine learning models for improved performance. The capacity in question also allows for the processing of larger machine learning workloads like higher resolution vision.
Another detail worth a mention here is rooted in MG26 family’s embedded AI/ML hardware acceleration. The stated acceleration ensures 8x faster processing of machine learning algorithms at the consumption of a 1/6th the power compared to running on the CPU.
Silicon Labs’ new AI/ML Developer Journey even provides an easy on-ramp for developers to start building new models and take advantage of this processing power.
Joining that would be the potential for best-in-class security, which will be realized through Silicon Labs Secure Vault™ and ARM TrustZone, compliant with all Matter security requirements.
Furthermore, MG26 will leverage Silicon Labs Custom Part Manufacturing Service to program its devices with customer Matter device attestation certificate (DAC), security keys, and other features during the fabrication process, solidifying their case against vulnerabilities.
Complementing that would be the availability of secure OTA firmware updates, in conjunction with Secure Boot, that will prevent the installation of malicious software and facilitate swift vulnerability patching.
Hold on, we still have a few bits left to unpack, considering we haven’t yet expanded upon the new assortment’s concurrent multiprotocol, which makes it possible for users to run both Zigbee and Matter over Thread at the same time, as well as simplify SKU management for the product manufacturer and achieve ease of use for the end user.
Rounding up highlights would be the prospect of industry-leading RF performance to energy-efficiency ratio. This relays MG26’s transmission power of up to +19.5 dBm and world-leading receiver sensitivity with ultra-low TX, all that enabling long-life battery-powered IoT devices with superior wireless performance.
“Silicon Labs’ Matter-ready SoCs enable us to bring super compact, battery-driven devices with parallel support for several communication protocols to the market,” said Jürgen Pansy, co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of Nuki. “Our latest innovation, the award-winning Smart Lock, supports Matter via Thread using Silicon Labs hardware that saves energy and space in the lock’s design to allow for additional connectivity integrations like Bluetooth LE and Wi-Fi.”
