Cypress PSoC and CyFi solution enables smart connectivity for remote controls

SAN JOSE, USA: Cypress Semiconductor Corp. announced that PURE, the UK’s leading radio manufacturer, has employed Cypress’s CyFi low-power wireless powered by a PSoC programmable system-on-chip to implement communication in the remote control for the EVOKE Flow and AVANTI Flow digital audio systems.

The CyFi wireless solution overcomes infrared’s line-of-sight requirement, enabling the full-featured remote controls to access the audio systems from another room. The EVOKE Flow also leverages the versatile Cypress CapSense solution to implement the touch-sensing controls on its front panel.

The CyFi solution's ultra-low-power consumption prolongs battery life. Its industry-leading interference immunity allows remote controls to operate uninterrupted in the home environment, where the 2.4GHz spectrum is crowded with signals from Wi-Fi, microwaves, cordless phones and other devices.

The CyFi solution is enhanced by the flexible and easy-to-use PSoC programmable system-on-chip, which reduces the complexity of quantifying a sensor’s signal by integrating the amplification, filtering, and ADC stages into a single device.

The award-winning EVOKE Flow portable radio and AVANTI Flow tabletop digital audio system offer users a rich choice of audio content from sources such as internet radio using the built in Wi-Fi connection, DAB or FM broadcasts, or even music on a home Wi-Fi network.

“Top-quality digital audio systems such as PURE’s Flow products demand a feature-rich remote control with high reliability and low-power consumption for years of battery life,” said Martin Harrison, Director of Hardware Development at PURE. “We chose the CyFi solution for its ease of integration and flexibility. The versatility of PSoC to control multiple functions helped us to reduce our BOM costs while also providing our products with a very marketable USP (unique selling point).”

“The PSoC and CyFi wireless solution delivers robust connectivity and flexibility to the remote for PURE’s award-winning products,” said Matt Branda, marketing director for PSoC at Cypress. “Cypress’s solution provides the innovative features and performance required by next-generation remote controls.”

CyFi Low-Power Wireless
The CyFi solution uses Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) modulation to encode data and allow the CyFi receiver to recover the signal when faced with interference. The solution intelligently selects a clear channel from the 80 narrow, 1 MHz channels at the transceiver’s disposal. No other 2.4-GHz solution combines DSSS modulation with this level of frequency agility.

The solution can also increase power amplification to overcome interference. This dynamic adaptability to the operating environment also lends to optimizing power consumption. In noise-free environments the CyFi solution communicates at 1 Mbps to minimize transfer time and leverage the ultra-low-power sleep current of 0.8 uA.

The solution automatically drops to a slower, more robust 250 kbps data rate when it detects interference, and it can increase power amplification to reduce retransmissions and return to sleep-mode faster.

The CyFi protocol stack has the smallest memory footprint of any comparable wireless solution at 5.5K in Flash, leaving room for additional system functionality in the controlling PSoC device. Designers can use the compact protocol stack to build a complete wireless star-topology network with fewer peripherals and greater functionality.

The protocol stack has a network capacity of up to 255 nodes per hub, all with asynchronous, bi-directional communication.