Microchip - needCode

What the partnership adds

Microchip's Design Partner Program is a worldwide network of engineering firms that design with Microchip's portfolio. You can reach any partner directly and contract with the partner — Microchip does not need to be part of the agreement.

A direct line into Microchip

When a question goes beyond the datasheet, we take it to Microchip's technical support, with partner access to samples, tools and training.

Validated starting points

We start from what Microchip has already proven: RF-certified modules, chip-down reference designs and the MicroCHECK design review, which Microchip offers at no charge to customers who choose its wireless devices.

One team, one contract

We own the work from architecture to production. Microchip's support stays available on silicon questions; you deal with one engineering partner.

What we bring to Microchip silicon

01 Wireless from the radio up

We work from the PHY and link layer upward. For a silicon vendor we contributed to controller firmware and PHY handling, then built the host and application layers above it. We know where wireless products fail: between the stack, the phone and the field.

02 New silicon is our normal

We supported bring-up of nine hardware platforms — SDKs, drivers and stacks — for a global RF silicon vendor, and we are the team behind a publicly available UWB SDK. Getting productive on a new platform fast is routine work for us.

03 Zephyr and FreeRTOS, every day

Microchip is a Silver Member of the Zephyr Project and supports Zephyr RTOS on its PIC32-BZ6 wireless MCU family, alongside MPLAB tools. Zephyr and FreeRTOS are where our firmware team works daily, which keeps your code base portable.

04 Standards, security and certification

We contributed to the Bluetooth Mesh specification and guide products through Bluetooth SIG qualification. We deliver under ISO 9001:2015 and ISO/IEC 27001:2022, with security designed for the RED Delegated Act and the EU Cyber Resilience Act.

What we build on Microchip silicon

Bluetooth LE products

Firmware and application layer on PIC32-BZ wireless MCUs and their RF-certified modules, qualified against Bluetooth Core 6.0. GATT services and profiles, bonding, secure provisioning and OTA updates. Connection state machines are designed for real-world failure modes: stale bonds, parameter conflicts, iOS and Android background behaviour.

Thread and Matter

Matter over Thread devices on PIC32-BZ6 – data model, Bluetooth LE commissioning, Thread networking and OTA, prepared for Connectivity Standards Alliance certification. PIC32-BZ2 and BZ3 add Thread 1.4 support in smaller memory footprints.

Zigbee 3.0

End devices, routers and gateways on PIC32-BZ2 and BZ3 for lighting, sensors and building control. A hardware arbiter shares the radio between Bluetooth LE and 802.15.4, so one chip carries BLE commissioning alongside Zigbee or Thread. When the roadmap moves to Matter, we plan the migration.

Wi-Fi and cloud connectivity

Wi-Fi products on PIC32MZ W1 Wi-Fi MCUs and WFI32 modules, or a host MCU paired with RNWF02 plug-and-play modules or WINCS02 and WILCS02 network controllers. Cloud onboarding with hardware-backed credentials from Microchip's Trust Platform, secure OTA, and power profiles tuned for constrained devices.

Long range with LoRaWAN

End nodes on the WLR089U0 module, built on the SAM R34/R35 family — FCC, IC and RED certified, covering 863–928 MHz in one part. Battery-powered sensing for metering, agriculture and remote assets, with the same low-power discipline as our BLE work.

Security and regulatory readiness

Immutable secure boot on PIC32-BZ6, Trust Platform secure elements (Trust&GO, TrustFLEX) for pre-provisioned keys and certificates, signed and encrypted OTA, and key handling through production. Delivered under ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and mapped to the RED Delegated Act (EN 18031) and the Cyber Resilience Act.

Test automation and validation

CI/CD pipelines, hardware-in-the-loop rigs, conformance suites and interoperability testing against physical iOS and Android handsets.

Companion apps and productization

iOS, Android and Flutter apps for commissioning, provisioning and OTA. Hardware design and PCB layout from schematic to production, pilot runs, transfer to production and lifecycle maintenance.

Where Microchip Bluetooth LE meets Ultra-Wideband

Ultra-Wideband is our second core discipline. Every secure UWB ranging session needs a trusted out-of-band channel to find the peer and exchange session keys – and on CCC Digital Key, FiRa and Aliro systems, that channel is Bluetooth LE.

A Microchip wireless MCU can own that role next to a UWB radio. PIC32CX-BZ6 is AEC-Q100 Grade 1 qualified up to 125 °C, so the same BLE design fits vehicle-mounted nodes as well as locks and readers.

CCC Digital Key
BLE discovery and key exchange for automotive access
Aliro
Smart locks and access control
RTLS
FiRa- and Omlox-based positioning with tags and anchors
Presence and motion
UWB radar-style sensing alongside BLE

One team owns both radios — and the handoff between them, where most integration failures live.

Explore our UWB capabilities

Defence, aerospace and space

Defence and space programmes need parts that stay available, roots of trust they can audit, and an engineering partner inside the allied perimeter. Microchip covers the first two; we add the third.

Defence and dual-use

Secure wireless and embedded firmware for defence-tech and dual-use systems: sensor nodes, secure links, UAV and robotic subsystems, and GPS-denied UWB positioning. Microchip's Client-Driven Obsolescence practice keeps parts with active demand available, and its annual end-of-life rate was about 0.2% in 2022 and 2023. We work from Kraków under ISO/IEC 27001:2022; clearance and export-control requirements are scoped per programme.

NewSpace and space-grade MCUs

Microchip's SAMV71Q21RT (radiation-tolerant) and SAMRH71 (radiation-hardened) MCUs are built on the automotive-qualified SAMV71 Arm Cortex-M7. Teams can develop on the commercial SAMV71 and move to the space part with the same toolchain, libraries and board support package; the SAMV71Q21RT keeps the COTS pinout. We write and validate that firmware on commercial hardware first — drivers, CAN FD and Ethernet, ECC memory and integrity-check handling — so the move to flight hardware is a part change, not a rewrite.

Discuss a defence or space programme

Wireless we have already shipped

Our Microchip partnership is new; our wireless track record is not. These products reached production on other platforms, and the engineering patterns behind them carry over to Microchip silicon.

Fire-protection system – installed base in the thousands

Secure OTA/DFU architecture for fleet-wide lifecycle updates across a deployed estate.

Smart lighting, first certified Bluetooth Mesh stack

Core R&D squad for a lighting-control company, co-authoring Bluetooth SIG protocols.

Lighting-as-a-service, mesh at building scale

BLE Mesh deployed in a commercial lighting-as-a-service offering; our mesh implementations are validated in networks of up to 1,000 nodes.

Smart-home mesh system

Device firmware plus iOS and Android gateway apps with field diagnostic tooling.

Connected wearable, on-device AI

A PC-grade neural network ported onto a wireless SoC for on-device vital-sign and safety inference.

RF silicon vendor, dedicated development centre

Grew from under 10 to 30 engineers, supported bring-up of 9 hardware platforms, zero-churn core team for 5+ years.

On our Microchip bench

Reference builds on Microchip evaluation hardware: Matter over Thread on PIC32-BZ6, Wi-Fi cloud onboarding with Trust&GO, and a LoRaWAN sensor node on WLR089U0. Engineering notes from each appear in our Insights.

We also take over work already in flight

Stalled designs and changed teams — and carry it through to production.

Building on Microchip, or choosing it?

Book a discovery call with our CEO

Book a discovery call

Industries we build for on Microchip

Industry

What we build

Smart home and buildings

Matter over Thread devices, Zigbee 3.0 lighting and sensors, Wi-Fi appliances, gateways and bridges

Industrial IoT

Wi-Fi and BLE connected equipment, LoRaWAN sensors, secure provisioning and OTA at fleet scale

Automotive and mobility

BLE nodes for digital key and access on AEC-Q100 Grade 1 wireless MCUs

Access and security

Smart locks (Aliro), readers, phone-as-a-key with BLE and UWB

Smart agriculture

LoRaWAN field sensors, crop and livestock monitoring, battery-powered remote nodes

Connected health and wearables

BLE sensors and monitors with companion apps

Defence and dual-use

Secure sensor nodes and links, UAV and robotic subsystems, GPS-denied positioning

NewSpace

Firmware for radiation-tolerant and radiation-hardened Arm Cortex-M7 MCUs

Who this partnership is for

You have chosen Microchip and need wireless depth

Firmware, Matter, security, mobile and certification from a team that has taken wireless products into volume production.

Your project has stalled, changed hands or needs a new platform

We take over in-flight designs and port firmware between wireless platforms, including the timing, stack and provisioning details where ports usually break.

You run a defence or space programme

Long-lifecycle parts, auditable roots of trust and an EU-based team inside the allied perimeter.

You are choosing the protocol and the silicon

Bluetooth LE, Thread, Matter, Zigbee, Wi-Fi or LoRaWAN — we map use case, power budget and certification path before you commit.

Your product must meet RED and the CRA

We review the design against EN 18031 and the Cyber Resilience Act, then close the gaps with Microchip's security building blocks.

Book a discovery call

Ways to start

01

Protocol and silicon selection

Duration:
1 week
Best for:
Teams before a platform decision
Deliverable:
Recommended protocol and Microchip part or module, power and BOM estimate, certification path

02

Microchip wireless proof of concept

Duration:
2–4 weeks
Best for:
Validating range, power, interoperability or Matter commissioning
Deliverable:
Working demo on Microchip evaluation hardware, measured results, go/no-go report

03

RED and CRA readiness review

Duration:
2 weeks
Best for:
Connected products sold in the EU
Deliverable:
Gap analysis against EN 18031 and the CRA, security architecture on Microchip root-of-trust options, remediation plan

04

Product development or dedicated team

Duration:
Phased
Best for:
From architecture to production, or an EU team in your cadence
Deliverable:
Firmware, hardware, apps and validation through transfer to production

FAQ

Yes. needCode is an authorized partner in Microchip's Design Partner Program, the network of engineering firms that design with Microchip's portfolio. You can contact us directly or through our profile in Microchip's Design Partner directory.

Design Partners provide engineering services on Microchip silicon: software, hardware, industrial design and full turnkey development. You contract with the partner directly; Microchip does not need to be part of the agreement.

Our focus is PIC32-BZ wireless MCUs and WBZ modules for Bluetooth LE, Thread, Matter and Zigbee; PIC32MZ W1 and Microchip's Wi-Fi controllers; WLR089U0 for LoRaWAN; and Trust Platform secure elements. The partnership is new; our wireless engineering is not — we bring years of BLE, Mesh, Thread and UWB product work to these platforms.

Yes – that is the purpose of our one-week selection engagement. We weigh range, power, data rate, ecosystem, certification and cost, and recommend a specific Microchip part or module.

Yes. We build Matter devices and prepare them for Connectivity Standards Alliance certification: data model, commissioning, device attestation credentials and test-lab readiness.

Security is designed in from the first architecture review: secure boot, signed updates, key provisioning and vulnerability handling. RED cybersecurity requirements have applied since 1 August 2025; CRA reporting obligations since 11 September 2026, with full application from 11 December 2027.

Yes — as an EU-based embedded R&D partner for defence, aerospace and dual-use programmes, certified to ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and ISO 9001:2015. Defence-specific certifications such as DO-178C or MIL-STD, export control and clearances are scoped per programme.

Kraków, Poland – a single EU engineering hub serving customers across EMEA and the Americas, remote-first with on-site visits as needed.

Let's build on Nordic together

Whether you are starting from a chipset selection decision or need to unblock a product that has stalled in certification, we bring nRF depth and a production track record to the table.

Bartek Kling / CEO

Book a discovery call

Our Partnership with Microchip Technology

What the partnership adds

A direct line into Microchip

Validated starting points

One team, one contract

What we bring to Microchip silicon

01

Wireless from the radio up

02

New silicon is our normal

03

Zephyr and FreeRTOS, every day

04

Standards, security and certification

What we build on Microchip silicon

Bluetooth LE products

Thread and Matter

Zigbee 3.0

Wi-Fi and cloud connectivity

Long range with LoRaWAN

Security and regulatory readiness

Test automation and validation

Companion apps and productization

Where Microchip Bluetooth LE meets Ultra-Wideband

Ultra-Wideband is our second core discipline. Every secure UWB ranging session needs a trusted out-of-band channel to find the peer and exchange session keys – and on CCC Digital Key, FiRa and Aliro systems, that channel is Bluetooth LE.

A Microchip wireless MCU can own that role next to a UWB radio. PIC32CX-BZ6 is AEC-Q100 Grade 1 qualified up to 125 °C, so the same BLE design fits vehicle-mounted nodes as well as locks and readers.

One team owns both radios — and the handoff between them, where most integration failures live.

Defence, aerospace and space

Defence and space programmes need parts that stay available, roots of trust they can audit, and an engineering partner inside the allied perimeter. Microchip covers the first two; we add the third.

Defence and dual-use

NewSpace and space-grade MCUs

Wireless we have already shipped

Our Microchip partnership is new; our wireless track record is not. These products reached production on other platforms, and the engineering patterns behind them carry over to Microchip silicon.

Fire-protection system – installed base in the thousands

Smart lighting, first certified Bluetooth Mesh stack

Lighting-as-a-service, mesh at building scale

Smart-home mesh system

Connected wearable, on-device AI

RF silicon vendor, dedicated development centre

On our Microchip bench

We also take over work already in flight

Building on Microchip, or choosing it?

Industries we build for on Microchip

Industry

What we build

Who this partnership is for

You have chosen Microchip and need wireless depth

Your project has stalled, changed hands or needs a new platform

You run a defence or space programme

You are choosing the protocol and the silicon

Your product must meet RED and the CRA

Ways to start

01

Protocol and silicon selection

02

Microchip wireless proof of concept

03

RED and CRA readiness review

04

Product development or dedicated team

FAQ

Is needCode an official Microchip partner?

What does a Microchip Design Partner do?

Which Microchip wireless technologies does needCode work with?

Can you help us choose between Bluetooth LE, Thread, Zigbee, Wi-Fi and LoRaWAN?

Do you support Matter certification?

How do you handle the RED Delegated Act and the Cyber Resilience Act?

Do you work on defence and space programmes?

Where is needCode based?

Partnerships:

Let's build on Nordic together