Can you please share the schematic and layout in gerbers? If you are not comfortable sharing the design files here, please feel free to submit a ticket via https://www.silabs.com/support and share the design files in the case.
Can you please share the schematic and layout in gerbers? If you are not comfortable sharing the design files here, please feel free to submit a ticket via https://www.silabs.com/support and share the design files in the case.
On EM2xx platform, valid PHY power range of the radio is -43 dBm to 3 dBm. Any integer power level that falls within this range will be rounded to the nearest supported setting.
Note: txPower values 4 and 5 dBm are available only in boost mode (which will increase power consumption significantly, thus reducing battery life).
On EM35x platform, valid PHY power range of the radio is -43 dBm to 8 dBm. Any integer power level that falls within this range will be rounded down to nearest supported setting
Note: txPower values 4 through 8 dBm are available only in boost mode (which will increase power consumption significantly, thus reducing battery life).
Does Silicon Labs offer schematic or PCB layout review service?
Answer
Our technical support teams are happy to review any schematics, layouts and physical PCBs and provide any recommendations they may have.
Please note however, that all feedback is provided on an AS-IS basis, without any warranties of any kind. This means that you are solely responsible for all aspects of a design prior to all manufacturing. Similarly, our advice is based on our experience with similar designs, rather than any testing or verification of your design. Our review should not be considered as any kind of guarantee of performance. You are solely responsible for testing and verification, and we strongly recommend that you do so prior to committing your design to production.
Our technical support teams are happy to review any schematics, layouts and physical PCBs and provide any recommendations we may have.
Please note however, that all feedback is provided on an AS-IS basis, without any warranties of any kind. This means that you are solely responsible for all aspects of a design prior to all manufacturing. Similarly, our advice is based on our experience with similar designs, rather than any testing or verification of your design. Our review should not be considered as any kind of guarantee of performance. You are solely responsible for testing and verification, and we strongly recommend that you do so prior to committing your design to production.
When the customer or the FAE wants to create a support case in Salesforce for a hardware design review, it is important that he or she has reviewed the following expectations for thorough and efficient reviews of the Wireless SoCs and modules.
Provide a short description of the product's use case.
Schematic review submission checklist
The schematic should be provided in a searchable PDF format as it allows the reviewers to search for a particular net or component in a multi-page schematic.
The entire schematic of the design is preferred, however, if that is not possible due to confidentiality, then provide details in the case description about power supply used, host MCU part number, and other radio part numbers, if any, for a thorough review. For example, if there is a WiFi part in the design, but not visible in the schematic provided, then the feedback we provide will be incomplete as co-located radios on a single PCB requires additional software and hardware changes to improve coexistence between the radios.
Provide part numbers of all components connected to the EFR32 in case they are not mentioned in the schematic itself as the component characteristics can differ with size and can affect the expected performance, for example, RF performance due to de-tuning of the matching network. Additionally, provide the datasheets of the crystals - HFXO and LFXO (where applicable) as there can be multiple variants of a crystal and it can be confusing to find the correct datasheet if the complete part number is not provided.
In addition to datasheet recommendations, review the following documentation and follow the schematic guidelines as much as possible to achieve optimal performance.
Silicon Labs' reference board schematic for the part. The component values in the reference designs were chosen to meet datasheet specifications.
Layout review submission checklist
The layout should be provided in Gerber file format for all layers including solder mask, paste, and drill files. Typically, Gerber files are provided to the PCB manufacturer so it's important that the final design files are reviewed rather than the CAD file itself in order to identify any anomalies that can cause manufacturing or performance issues.
In addition to datasheet recommendations, review the following documentation and follow the layout guidelines as much as possible to achieve optimal performance, especially for RF.
If the design has been reviewed before by the wireless hardware team in a different portal case, create the new case with the previous case (in which the same design was reviewed) listed as parent case. It is important to link similar cases together for traceability.
The purpose of this KBA is to organize all Wireless Hardware related specific/generic technical documents (application notes and KBAs) applicable to EFR32 Series 2 SoCs and Wireless modules in one place. The content is grouped into the following categories to make it easier to find what you are looking for.
The purpose of this KBA is to organize all Wireless Hardware related specific/generic technical documents (application notes and KBAs) applicable to EFR32 Series 2 SoCs and Wireless modules in one place. The content is grouped into the following categories to make it easier to find what you are looking for.
The purpose of this KBA is to organize all Wireless Hardware related specific/generic technical documents (application notes and KBAs) applicable to EFR32 Series 2 SoCs and Wireless modules in one place. The content is grouped into the following categories to make it easier to find what you are looking for.
We understand the confusion and are working on resolving it.
Can you please open a support ticket through our support page - https://www.silabs.com/support? Unfortunately, we cannot share the USB and Ethernet schematic page of BRD4001 here, but we can share it via a Salesforce ticket.
The purpose of this KBA is to organize all Wireless Hardware related specific/generic technical documents (application notes and KBAs) applicable to EFR32 Series 2 SoCs and Wireless modules in one place. The content is grouped into the following categories to make it easier to find what you are looking for.