16 June 2011

RFMD launches RF6555 ZigBee FEM for smart energy applications

RF Micro Devices Inc of Greensboro, NC, USA unveiled its latest ZigBee front-end module (FEM), the RF6555, optimized for smart energy/advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) applications providing utilities and consumers more control over how they monitor and save energy.

ZigBee is a global low-power wireless networking standard for monitoring and control across a variety of applications, including energy management, safety and security, home automation, lighting, and electrical appliances.

The highly integrated RF6555 combines the power amplifier (PA), harmonic transmit filtering and low-noise amplifier (LNA) with bypass mode in a single 5mm x 5mm x 1mm package, enabling users to shrink product footprint, accelerate product time-to-market, lower bill of material (BOM) costs, and reduce power consumption for smart energy and home-area network (HAN) applications, RFMD claims.

As well as battery-operated smart grid and smart energy applications (such as smart meters, demand response, and HAN devices), the RF6555 also suits industrial and other wireless sensing and control applications requiring low power consumption, high performance, and proven reliability, the firm adds.

The RF6555 operates with the EM300 Series chips from Ember Corp of Boston, MA, USA: the EM351 and the EM357 — in both system-on-chip (SoC) and network co-processor modes — as well as with the EM250 SoC and EM260 network co-processor.

“Industry analysts forecast global smart energy deployments will continue to grow rapidly, with particular demand anticipated in low-power wireless networking technologies like ZigBee,” notes Bob Van Buskirk, president of RFMD’s Multi-Market Products Group (MPG).

Ember’s ZigBee networking systems — chips, ZigBee protocol software and tools — simplify the complexity of integrating embedded software, networking and RF for developing low-power, wireless products in smart energy, connected home and other remote monitoring and control applications. Since its inception, Ember has been the most deployed ZigBee platform in the market.

The EM300 Series is Ember’s next-generation ZigBee chip family, and the world’s foremost ARM Cortex-M3 based ZigBee SoC, packing what’s claimed to be the industry’s highest wireless networking performance and application code space into the lowest-power-consuming chip set. The EM250 and EM260 are the most deployed family of ZigBee semiconductors.

Tags: RFMD ZigBee FEM

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