Ember Corporation today announced that the
industry’s lowest power ZigBee(TM) networking platform, which it
developed jointly with Texas Instruments Inc. will start shipping next
month. ZigBee is a wireless, standards-based radio technology designed
for remote monitoring, control and sensor network applications
including home control and awareness, building automation, industrial
automation, asset management and Homeland Security.
Ember also announced that customers have already attended training
at Ember to get an early start in the development of wireless
applications based on the new platform, which is currently undergoing
final quality assurance testing. These include a sensor application
being developed by a U.S. government defense agency, and a wireless,
wearable, non-intrusive monitor for the healthcare and eldercare
markets being developed by AFrame Digital, a Virginia based healthcare
products and technology company.
“AFrame is excited to move to the Ember TI430 development kit
because this new chip combination will significantly increase the
battery lifespan of our product in its small form factor,” said Linda
Bonanno, CTO and EVP of engineering at AFrame Digital. “Ember has
developed a best in class low-power ZigBee solution that AFrame can
leverage for our healthcare monitoring solution for the eldercare and
chronic disease management markets.”
The new ZigBee platform integrates Ember’s proven and ZigBee
compliant EM2420 radio transceiver, and EmberZNet software platform
with TI’s 16-bit MSP430F1612 microcontroller (MCU) into a complete,
dual-chip ZigBee/802.15.4 solution. It is designed for OEMs building
ZigBee applications that require the lowest possible power
requirements, as well as for companies who have already standardized
on the TI MCU and wish to ZigBee-enable their products quickly and
easily.
The 2.4 GHz Ember EM2420 is the highest performing, most
power-efficient radio transceiver in its class, providing a flexible,
simple interface to a wide range of microcontrollers. The low power TI
MCU will also be paired with Ember’s recently announced EM260, network
processor solution which will be available early next year.
The MSP430F1612 ultra-low-power MCU offers the industry’s lowest
current consumption with only 1.1 micro-amps standby mode with
real-time clock operation, as well as a 300 micro-amps (1 MHz) active
mode that allows engineers to tune system clocking to meet precise
power requirements. With fast instruction execution enabled by a
modern 16-bit RISC CPU, a start-up time of less than six microseconds
from standby and a fully synchronized, high-speed system clock, the
chip’s total power consumption is 10 times lower than competing
devices.
Customers can quickly start building ZigBee applications with
Ember’s Developer Kit that includes all the hardware, development
tools, and software needed to prototype robust, decentralized device
networks using the new Ember/TI chipset. The kit can be ordered from
Ember’s Web site at http://www.ember.com/products/buynow.html;
starting at $4,995 for the JumpStart Kit and $13,950 for the Full
Developer Kit.
About ZigBee: Wireless Control That Simply Works
The ZigBee Alliance is an association of companies working
together to enable reliable, cost-effective, low-power, wirelessly
networked, monitoring and control products based on an open global
standard. The ZigBee Alliance is a rapidly growing, non-profit
industry consortium of leading semiconductor manufacturers, technology
providers, OEMs, and end-users worldwide. Membership is open to all.
Additional information can be found at www.zigbee.org.
About Ember Corporation
Ember Corporation develops ZigBee-compliant wireless semiconductor
solutions that help automate homes, make buildings consume less
energy, enable manufacturing plants to run with fewer breakdowns, and
keep the country’s borders and infrastructure safe and secure. With
more than 120 customers, Ember’s vision is to help create an “Internet
of things” by enabling the eight billion microcontrollers built into
products each year to support low-cost, low-power networking
applications in any industry. Headquartered in Boston with offices and
distributors worldwide, the company is a lead promoter of the ZigBee
Alliance and its platform is the National Technical Systems’ (NTS)
“Golden Suite” for 802.15.4/ZigBee interoperability testing. For more
information, please visit www.ember.com.
