News

8 September 2008

 

Skyworks and Ember partner to develop ZigBee FEMs

Skyworks Solutions Inc of Woburn, Mass, USA, in partnership with Ember Corp, is developing the industry's first portfolio of ZigBee front-end modules (FEM) targeting applications such as smart meters in energy management, home area networks (HAN), and industrial automation.

"Skyworks' partnership with Ember accelerates our efforts in the energy management industry by more than doubling our addressable market for front-end modules," said Stan Swearingen, Skyworks' vice president and general manager of Linear Products. "By integrating our front-end modules with Ember's ZigBee silicon, we are offering our customers a high performance plug-and-play solution…"

According to Skyworks, West Technology Research Solutions (WTRS) forecasts that the ZigBee/IEEE 802.15.4 market will grow at an annual rate of over 117%, from approximately 8.4m units shipped in 2007 to approximately 516m in 2012.

Ember Corp of Boston, Mass, USA develops ZigBee wireless networking technology. Its low-power wireless technology can be embedded into a variety of devices to be part of a self-organizing mesh network. The firm is a board member of the ZigBee Alliance and its platform is the "Golden Suite" for 802.15.4/ZigBee interoperability testing.

Ember says that its EM250 system-on-chip (SoC) along with the EmberZNet PRO networking stack is the industry's only true SoC platform supporting the ZigBee PRO Feature Set. The EM250 integrates an IEEE 802.15.4 radio, a 16-bit microprocessor, flash, random access memory and peripherals.

The EM260 is the industry's first ZigBee network co-processor that combines a 2.4 gigahertz (GHz) IEEE 802.15.4 compliant radio transceiver with a flash-based microprocessor running the EmberZNet PRO ZigBee stack, says the firm.

Skyworks’ SKY65336 is a 8 x 8mm multi-chip module FEM for ZigBee and other 2.4 GHz industrial, scientific and medical band applications. It is comprised of a selectable transmit and receive (Tx/Rx) path. The Tx path incorporates a harmonic filter and high efficiency PA, which delivers 20 dBm at the module's output port. The Rx path includes a low noise amplifier, which boasts a total Rx path noise figure of 1.9 dB, including switch loss. Both Tx and Rx paths integrate baluns to provide differential ports to Ember's EM250 and EM260 transceivers.

The SKY65337 is a FEM that is footprint compatible with the SKY65336, with the LNA removed for applications which require lower cost. The Tx path delivers 20 dBm of high efficiency output power, while balanced input and outputs ports have been provided to connect to the EM250 and EM260.

See related items:

Skyworks grows faster-than-expected 23% year-on-year

Skyworks launches energy management product portfolio for the wireless home

Search: Skyworks FEMs ZigBee

Visit: www.ember.com

Visit: www.skyworksinc.com