CoreHW in Finland is a new entrant in the Bluetooth direction finding ecosystem. Their main product is the CHW10x0 chip that supports switching of complex antenna arrays needed for Bluetooth direction finding. It allows designs with only one component where three to five are usually required. The switch has a fast settling time for RF signals and a good phase balance between antenna ports providing better position accuracy.
CoreHW also has reference antenna arrays and 2D software for angle and position estimation to shorten time-to-market for AoA locator and AoD beacon manufacturers. They have a demo kit including 4 locators, 2 tags, a CorePatch antenna array board with CHW1010 chip, a Bluetooth T5.1 chip for IQ sampling and a USB interface (Ethernet) to connect locators with a Windows PC.
The CoreHW reference boards have some intriguing Medusa-type printed circuit board (PCB) tracks, presumably to keep the track length the same to each antenna to normalise RF signal delays.
We look forward to seeing CoreHW components in their customers’ production devices.