1. Custom Firmware & Embedded Software Development

The reason why Apollo Microcontrollers (MCUs) have a great reputation, is because of their firmware. Firmware is developed by a professional team of Apollo developers using C/C++ and the AmbiqSuite SDK. They use either FreeRTOS or Zephyr RTOS as the operating system for their firmware systems. Some examples of the key services provided by their firmware are:

Development of Sensor Drivers

Creating i2c, spi, uart drivers for biometric sensors such as MAX30102, MLX90632, LSM6DSO, environmental sensors SHT40 and BME280, as well as transducers for industrial use.

These drivers support functions such as:

Interupt driven sensor acquisition via DMA on Apollo's ARM Cortex-M4F CPU through their peripheral hardware.

Managing Power States

Multiple low-power modes (hibernate, sleep, and deep sleep) are implemented by Apollo MCU's, which also provide sub µA standby currents. Expert firmware engineering provide sleep/wake state machines that maximize battery life (which is essential for a product designed to survive on one charge for either one or several years).

Signal Processing and Sensor Fusion

Real-time DSP algorithms (FIR/IIR digital filter functions, FFT analysis, complementary filter-based IMU fusion (Mahony/Madgwick), and peak detection of PPG signals for heart rate and SpO₂) can be run on an Apollo4, with the use of the floating-point unit and DSP extensions to minimize power usage when performing these functions.

Firmware Over-The-Air (OTA) Updates

OTA updates can be performed via BLE using the Ambiq OTA bootloader, allowing the firmware to be updated remotely when there is no physical access to the hardware – a feature that is essential for managing IoT device fleets.

2. PCB Hardware Design for Apollo MCU Devices

Great firmware running on a poor hardware design will underperform every time. Professional Apollo MCU hardware design services cover:

Schematic capture and layout

Full PCB design in Altium Designer, KiCad, or Cadence. Apollo MCU designs typically require a 4 to 6-layer stackup to properly manage the BLE 2.4 GHz antenna keep-out zone, high-speed SPI traces, and clean power plane separation. Designers follow Ambiq's reference design guidelines for decoupling, ground plane continuity, and crystal oscillator routing.

BLE antenna design

Whether using a chip antenna (such as the Johanson 2450AT18D0100E) or a PCB trace antenna, the antenna placement, ground clearance, and matching network tuning determine real-world BLE range and power efficiency. Antenna tuning with a vector network analyser is a standard step in professional Apollo BLE hardware development.

Miniaturisation for wearables

Apollo MCU wearable PCBs routinely achieve board sizes of 30–40 mm × 20 mm using 0201 and 0402 passive components, fine-pitch BGA/QFN packages, and flexible PCB (FPC) connectors. Rigid-flex PCB designs are available for devices where the electronics must conform to a curved or folded chassis.

Bring-up and hardware validation

Post-fabrication board bring-up, power rail validation with an oscilloscope and power analyser, I²C/SPI bus verification with a logic analyser, BLE RF testing, and DRC/signal integrity review.

3. BLE 5.x Wireless Stack Integration

The Apollo4 Blue and Apollo3 Blue variants include an integrated Bluetooth Low Energy 5.1 radio, eliminating the need for an external wireless module and reducing bill-of-materials cost significantly. BLE development services include:

GATT profile design

Defining custom BLE services, characteristics, and descriptors aligned with Bluetooth SIG standard profiles (Heart Rate Profile, Health Thermometer Profile, Device Information Service) or fully proprietary data formats for industrial applications.

Configuration of BLE Host Stack

The BLE host stack needs configuring to modify the connection interval, slave latency, supervision timeout, and advertising parameters to help you find balance between device throughput, latency and current consumption. An advertising device that has an interval of 1,000 ms will consume vastly less power than a device with an interval of 100 ms; however, the correct value will depend upon your application's required level of responsiveness.

BLE Mesh and Broadcast for Multi-Device Applications

If the application requires one to many (or mesh topology) connections (for example, smart building sensor or asset tracking arrays), then the application must be able to support integration of a BLE mesh stack using Bluetooth Mesh 1.0 profiles.

4. Cloud & IoT Backend Integration

Apollo MCU devices almost never operate alone because the general trend for IoT devices today is to require a cloud connection for their data movement. Apollo's experienced development teams can provide user-friendly, end-to-end cloud integration solutions. These integrations can include:

Azure IoT Hub / AWS IoT Core connectivity

When a device acts as a BLE peripheral, the associated gateway application (non-traditional applications such as .NET MAUI, React Native, or dedicated hardware gateways) can relay telemetry from the device to an Azure IoT Hub or AWS IoT Core using MQTT with TLS encryption.

Device twins enable both devices and the cloud to synchronize data between each other for the purpose of configuration management.

Edge Processing on the Apollo

Latency-sensitive applications run on the Apollo using its integrated machine learning core (available in Apollo4 variant MCUs) or through CMSIS-DSP algorithm processing. Only the compressed data packets or the summary events are sent to the cloud, enabling massive power savings in sending telemetric data to the cloud.

Device provisioning and certificate management

Zero-touch device provisioning using Azure Device Provisioning Service (DPS) or AWS IoT Fleet Provisioning, with X.509 certificate injection during manufacturing.