This week's EYE ON NPI is going loooooooooooooong with a fully integrated Long Range radio module + microcontroller - it's the Murata's Type 1SJ Integrated LoRaWAN Module (https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/m/murata-electronics-north-america/type-1sj-integrated-lorawan-module). This nifty wafer-thin chip is an all-in-one compact solution for adding far-reaching wireless without the cost and power requirements of cellular or WiFi. Particularly for compact products that need to stay small and thin, we've never seen a smaller integrated LoRaWAN solution!

This product is a true triple collaboration, combining the second-generation Semtech SX1262 radio frequency IC (https://www.digikey.com/short/342nj2dp) that comes with the licensed LoRa encoding support and an ARM Cortex-M0 STM32L072 microcontroller (https://www.digikey.com/short/z27vc2rn) from STMicroelectronics with 192 kB of Flash memory, and 20 kB of RAM, along with a built-in RF switch.

Having the STM32L0 chip means excellent deep sleep capabilities, so the module can run on a battery - even a coin cell - for a long time. The STM32 also has plenty of peripherals, so whatever data you need to send over LoRa, you'll be able to read and process the data: USB, ADC, I2C, SPI, UART etc.

The RF side of the module is the Semtech SX1262 - they're the company that licenses the LoRa RF specification so basically you're guaranteed to get working LoRa/LoRaWAN support with working code examples. The radio can transmit at up +22dBm for many-mile range, similar to the SX breakouts and FeatherWings we manufacture (https://www.adafruit.com/?q=lora&sort=BestMatch) with official driver code available through mbed (https://os.mbed.com/teams/Semtech/) and GitHub (https://github.com/Lora-net/sx126x_driver).

All together they make for a compact, inexpensive module which saves you money and space over combining the radio plus microcontroller. We like the epoxy-coated slab look and it seems like it would be easy to use in a pick & place + reflow manufacturing line. To get started quickly, you can pick up the Murata LBAA0QB1SJ-TEMP-EVK evaluation board (https://www.digikey.com/short/rz8pmb3j) or two, it comes with Arduino-like headers, antenna connection options and a built in SWD/JTAG programmer debugger for the STM32 microcontroller. Once you've got your code working, the individual Murata LBAA0QB1SJ-296 (https://www.digikey.com/short/cct0q8cd) modules are available on tape & reel - book an order with Digi-Key for shipment as soon as they come into stock!