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.

• [A] EFR32 Series 2 Wireless Modules
• [B] EFR32 Series 2 Wireless SoCs
• [C] Generic (applicable to both SoCs and Modules)
  • [1] RF
  • [2] Certifications
  • [3] Antenna
  • [4] Coexistence
  • [5] MCU   
  • [6] Testing
  • [7] Other

[A] EFR32 Series 2 Wireless Modules:

Application Notes

AN1048: Regulatory RF Module Certifications

AN1223: LGA Manufacturing Guidance

KBAs

STEP File information and steps to obtain those files

Design and Assembly guidelines for SiPs

[B] EFR32 Series 2 Wireless SoCs:

AN0002.2: EFR32 Wireless Gecko Series 2 Hardware Design Considerations

AN0948.2: EFR32 Series 2 Power Configurations and DC-DC

AN933.2: EFR32 Series 2 Minimal BOM

AN930.2: EFR32 Series 2 2.4 GHz Matching Guide

AN928.2: EFR32 Series 2 Layout Design Guide

[C] Generic 

[1] RF

KBAs

ESD protection of RF devices

RF Range calculator

RF Range factors

Range improvement calculation for a given extra link budget

Data rate, deviation, modulation index for 2GFSK signals

Modulation choice

OBW for digital modulations

Modulation index for digital modulations

RF shield vs. RX immunity

General layer count versus power output recommendations

Custom design PCB number of layers

Recommended routing technique for more layer RF designs

General RF layout suggestions

[2] Certifications

KBAs

Maximum allowed power for ZigBee applications under ETSI EN 300 328

ETSI EN 300 328 Adaptivity Compliance

FCC Harmonic Requirements

TX power limitations for regulatory compliance (ETSI, FCC)

Tips for FCC certification on Silicon Labs' 2.4GHz 802.15.4-based solutions

How to test and estimate TIS/TRP

[3] Antenna

Application Notes

AN1088: Designing with an Inverted-F 2.4 GHz PCB Antenna

APL10045: Antennas for Short Range Devices

AN853: Single-ended Antenna Matrix Design Guide

KBAs

Design tip for dipole antennas

Whip antenna length and size

Whip antenna parameters

Do loop antennas require a ground plane?

PCB antenna with wider bandwidth

Recommended distance between antennas for antenna diversity

Recommended external antenna matching network

How to maximize the isolation of coex. antennas on the same PCB

[4] Coexistence

AN1128: Bluetooth® Coexistence with Wi-Fi®

AN1017: Zigbee® and Silicon Labs® Thread Coexistence with Wi-Fi®

[5] MCU/Peripherals

Application Notes

AN958: Debugging and Programming Interfaces for Custom Designs

AN0016.2: Oscillator Design Considerations

KBAs

EFR32 DCDC powering external circuits

BSDL files

Layout design practices around DC-DC converter

CTUNE Access

HFXO Capacitor Bank (Ctune) calibration on EFR32

Saving CTUNE value as manufacturing token

[6] Testing

Application Notes

AN972: EFR32 RF Evaluation Guide

AN718: Manufacturing Test Overview

AN700.1: Manufacturing Test Guidelines for the EFR32

AN1162: Using the Manufacturing Library for EmberZNet

AN1046: Radio Frequency Physical Layer Evaluation in Bluetooth® SDK v2.x

AN1267: Radio Frequency Physical Layer Evaluation in Bluetooth® SDK v3.x

UG409: RAILtest User’s Guide

AN1019: Using the NodeTest Application

AN961: Bringing Up Custom Devices for the EFR32MG and EFR32FG Families

KBAs

How to build and use the StandardizedRfTesting sample in EmberZnet SDK?

Implementing wireless direct test mode (DTM)

[7] Other

How do I determine the PCB and schematic version of kit boards?

BRD4001A WSTK dimension

Hardware Design Review submission expectations for EFR32MGxx based designs

What are the valid values for txPower?

How to find schematics and other documentation for radio boards?

Six Hidden Costs in a Wireless SoC Design

Introduction

This KBA is a step-by-step guide for building and using the Bluetooth/Zigbee Commissioning Test System described in UG267 and the first part of this KBA:

Bluetooth Commissioning Test System -- Switched Multiprotocol (SMP)Sample Applications (UG267) Part I

Building the components of the system

This KBA expects that you have built either Zigbee or BLE apps with Simplicity Studio before, so not all steps will be described in detail.
[Note: Only IAR EWARM is supported as the compiler for these projects. GCC is expected in the future.]

We recommend using the brd4161A or brd4162A for all parts of this project.

1) Gecko Bootloader
Build the Gecko bootloader v1.4.1 for your part. Use the default settings for the Internal Storage Bootloader (Multiple Images), Generate and Build the project.
Load this bootloader onto all 3 of your WSTK+Radio Card sets. You can use the Simplicity Commander CLI to do a device masserase and then flash the -combined.s37 version of the bootloader to be sure you are doing a "clean" installation.

2) BLE NCP
Pick the Bluetooth HomeKit SDK + Platform Application type in the new AppBuilder project window and then pick the Bluetooth SDK 2.7.0.0. Select the NCP target - Switched Multiprotocol Trust Center and Generate and Build for your part with the default settings. Load this onto one of the WSTKs.

3) BLE Host App
Run Make in the switched_multipr_trust_center directory from \developer\sdks\gecko_sdk_suite\v2.0\app\bluetooth_2.6\examples_ncp_host\switched_multipr_trust_center into your host development environment. Normally, you will have either copied your stack onto your linux host or referenced it in your cross-compiling environment.

Plug in the WSTK with the BLE NCP on it, and execute the host app on your host as follows:
(assuming your USB port is ACM1)
./switched_multipr_trust_center /dev/ttyACM0 115200

4) Zigbee NCP
Pick the AppBuilder Customizable network coprocessor (NCP) applications and select EmberZNet 6.1.0.0 GA Network Coprocessor (NCP) Applicaiton Framework 6.1.0.0. Then pick the NCP UART HW (Hardware Flow Control) for your part, Generate, Build and Flash it onto a WSTK.

5) Zigbee Host App
Pick the AppBuilder ZCL Application Framework V2, Ember ZNet 6.1.0.0 GA Host 6.1.0.0, and select the SwitchedMultiprotocolTrustCenter. For Part, pull down None(Compatible).
After Generating, copy the project folder into the equivalent location on the stack in your build environment and Make it.

Plug in the WSTK with the Zigbee NCP on it and execute the host app with the following:
./SwitchedMultiprotocolTrustCenterHost_linux_4161_1217 -p /dev/ttyACM1 -b 115200

6a) BLE Joining Device .s37

Coming soon
6b) BLE Joining Device .gbl.bin

Coming soon
7a) Zigbee Joining Device .s37

Coming soon
7b) Zigbee Joining Device .gbl.bin

Coming soon

7c) Zigbee Joining Device .ota

Coming soon
8) Mobile App (just download and install)

Coming Soon

9) Uploading OTA file to Mobile Phone

Coming soon

10) Using the Mobile App to Bind and Commission

Coming soon

11a) Uploading OTA file to Joiner from Phone (Optional, not working 100%)

Coming soon

11b) Storing Zigbee App in Joiner Memory Slot (Recommended)

Coming soon

12) Booting into ZIgbee App and Joining Trust Center

Coming soon

Introduction

This set of sample apps provided in the Gecko SDK Suite (from v1.0.1) is designed to demonstrate Mobile App-based commissioning of a Switched Multiprotocol Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) / Zigbee joining device using a Trust Center with both BLE and Zigbee communications. It is described in section 8 of UG267.

[NOTE: As of Q3 2017, this suite of sample applications and documentation is currently broken. This KBA will detail the areas in the applications which have problems and will be updated when the bugs are corrected.]

This KBA is intended to describe the structure of the system, how the it should work, and give some step-by-step instructions for using it as a supplement to UG267.

The following are the components required for this system.

A Host computer, an Android mobile phone, and 3 Silabs WSTK Dev Boards with radio boards (brd4161A or brd4162A recommended so internal flash can be used for storage slots).

Host: A POSIX OS capable of running BLE and Zigbee host apps which use Interprocess Communications (IPC) to pass data between each other. This rules out running in Windows in most cases, because Windows does not support IPC and although cygwin may be able to do this with modifications, we have not pursued it. Our recommendation is to use MacOS or linux, whether an desktop linux OS, a virtual machine, or a Raspberry Pi, which is what is used in this example. You need to have the host set up to run GCC, which may require some additional components such as ncurses. Alternatively, you can cross-compile for your target.

Attached to the host are two WSTKs. One will run a Bluetooth NCP and the other will run a Zigbee NCP. The host apps for each of these will communicate with each other via IPC.

Mobile Phone App: Currently the mobile app runs on Android, while an iOS version is forthcoming.
There are two applications available, Gecko Commissioner, which is available in the Google Play Store and Gecko Commissioner QA, available at http://intrepid.io/ota/worcester-android/
[Note: the "worcester-android" version currently works better than the Play Store version so it is recommended. In the future, the Play Store version should be updated with improvements.]

Joining Device: This begins with a BLE app in the Application area of Flash, and it has two storage slots, one for the BLE app and one which is the target for the Zigbee app OTA download. This KBA will recommend loading the Zigbee .gbl directly.

[Note: due to a bug in storage, the OTA download is almost, but not quite working. You can see the Mobile App send the OTA, but it won't get stored.]
 

Bluetooth Commissioning Test System Concept
The Host can initially talk to the Joining Device and the Mobile App using Bluetooth. Once the commissioning information is shared between the BLE App and the Zigbee Trust Center also running on the Host, the Joining device will optionally be delivered the Zigbee app via Over-the-air download from the Mobile App (if OTA were working correctly), or already have the Zigbee app present in a storage slot. The Joining Device then copies the Zigbee app into Application space and reboots into it. The commissioning information is in place and the Zigbee App joins the Zigbee Trust Center.

There are two scenarios, a "Pull" system and a "Push" system.

The "Pull" Scenario

Commissing information (ie, the device's Install Code) is collected ("pulled") from the Joining Device's BLE app by the Mobile App and sent to the BLE app on the Host, which sends it via IPC to the Zigbee Trust Center on the Host.

The "Push" Scenario

The Mobile App gets the Network Key from the Trust Center via Bluetooth. (The Mobile App requests the key from the BLE host app, which queries the Zigbee Trust Center via IPC.) The Mobile App then transfers the Network Key to the BLE Joining Device, which stores the information to be used when rebooting into the Zigbee App.

[Note: due to a known bug, the Push scenario is not currently working.]

Building the SMP Bluetooth Commissioning Test System
As you can see, this is a large system with many moving parts. Here is what you will be building/using:
1) Gecko Bootloader. This will be an internal storage bootloader with 2 slots. If you use the same radio board for all 3 of the WSTKs, you can use the same bootloader, even for the NCPs which do not use the storage slots.
2) BLE NCP
3) BLE Host App
4) Zigbee NCP
5) Zigbee Host App
6a) BLE Joining Device .s37
6b) BLE Joining Device .gbl.bin
7a) Zigbee Joining Device .s37
7b) Zigbee Joining Device .gbl.bin
7c) Zigbee Joining Device .ota
8) Mobile App (just download and install)

Step-by-step instructions are available here
Bluetooth Commissioning Test System -- Switched Multiprotocol (SMP)Sample Applications (UG267) Part II