42.1 Overview

The PIC32CX-BZ3 provides an on-chip IEEE 802.15.4-compliant Zigbee, Bluetooth Low Energy 5.2 interface with integrated transceivers. The Wireless Subsystem block comprises the following modules:
  • Single ultra-low power 2.4 GHz ISM band RF transceiver
  • Bluetooth modem
  • Bluetooth link layer
  • ZigBee modem
  • ZigBee MAC

The radio arbiter hardware allows the establishment of Bluetooth or ZigBee links with programmable QoS. The RF transceiver includes a switching-power amplifier architecture and a transmit/receive switch. Therefore, medium to high power application use cases are supported without an external front-end module (FEM).

With integrated Ultra Low-Power 2.4 GHz ISM band single transceiver, the radio supports both Zigbee and Bluetooth 5.2 link protocols. An on-board intelligent Radio arbiter hardware allows the establishment of Bluetooth or ZigBee links with programmable QoS. The RF transceiver includes switching power amplifiers architecture and a TR switch. Therefore, medium to high power application use cases are supported without external FEM.

The RTOS running on the Cortex M4F CPU handles the arbitration between the application, the Bluetooth link stack, the ZigBee link stack and miscellaneous maintenance tasks.