SAN JOSE, California, June 27 /PRNewswire/ --
-- 103 dB link budget cuts system cost by up to 2/3, low power offers 5+ year battery life. Fully compliant 802.15.4 MAC and daughter board for STK500 included in user kits.
Atmel(R) Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML) announced today an 802.15.4/ZigBee(TM) solution that offers seamless migration to wireless networking for the more than 30,000 AVR(R)-based designs in automotive, industrial, and building control applications. The AVR Z-Link(TM) solution includes Atmel's ultra low power, high sensitivity 2.4 GHz AT86RF230 802.15.4 radio, an ultra low power ATmega1281 or ATmega 2561 AVR microcontroller, and a small footprint, fully compliant media access control (MAC) software optimized for the AVR architecture. This chip combination consumes less power, has a higher link budget, and a wider operating range than any 802.15.4 solution on the market today under comparable operating conditions.
Network and application layer software are provided by the Atmel's network of expert third-party vendors who offer optimized solutions in the IEEE(R) 802.15.4 standard and the ZigBee(TM) protocols.
103 dB Link Budget Cuts System Costs -- The -100 dB receive sensitivity and 3 dB transmit power of Atmel's Z-Link radio give it the highest link budget of any 802.15.4 radio on the market today. The AT86RF230 has line-of-sight range up to 2.8 times that of competing radios, reducing the total number of nodes required in the network and cutting 802.15.4 system cost by as much as 60%. The 103 dB link budget of the radio is achieved without external power amplifiers, resulting in a low bill of materials (BOM) cost. Only six external components are required for the radio function, the industry's lowest component count.
Lowest Power Radio/Controller Combo Extends End-node Battery Life -- 802.15.4/ZigBee end nodes are usually battery-powered, mandating multi-year battery life. With radio power consumption of 17 mA during transmission, 15 mA during receive mode, and 0.7 uA in sleep mode Atmel's Z-Link radio, with true 1.8V operation consumes the least power of any 802.15.4 radio on the market.
In a real-life application with one transmission per minute, the Atmel chip set consumes significantly less than 0.01 mA hours on average, resulting in a battery life of greater than 5 years using two AA 2700 mA hours batteries. The battery life of an Atmel end-node is predicted to be limited by the other non-radio/MCU system components, such as sensors or actuators, or by the shelf life of the battery.
AVR Microcontroller Offers Flexibility -- This solution is supported by Atmel's AVR family of 8-bit RISC microcontrollers with flash memory densities ranging from 32 KB to 256 KB. Existing AVR applications can be converted to 802.15.4 functionality by porting the legacy code to an AVR with a larger flash memory to accommodate the MAC and security layers.
RZ502 Accessory Kit -- Atmel's Z-Link radio is available as an add-on to STK(R)500/501 AVR starter kits. This RZ502 accessory kit allows existing STK500 users to easily upgrade to a wireless connection option.
RZ200 Demonstration Kit -- The demonstration kit contains five radio controller boards with Atmel's Z-Link 2.4 GHz 802.15.4 radio and ATmega1281 microcontroller, plus AVR ISP programming dongle, all the necessary cables, batteries, and antennas to allow users to create a simple five-node network for application evaluation.
Pricing Availability and Packaging
Atmel's AT86RF230 Z-Link radio is available now in a 5x5mm QFN package. The ATmega1281 and ATmega 2561 microcontrollers are available now in 9x9mm QFN packages. Atmel's AVR 802.15.4 chip set is available in the following bundle configurations, in quantities of 10,000 or more units:
ATmega64RZA Bundle of ATmega644 and AT86RF230 US$4.93
ATmega128RZA Bundle of ATmega1281 and AT86RF230 US$6.78
ATmega256RZA Bundle of ATmega2561 and AT86RF230 US$7.63
The RZ502 AVR Z-Link Accessory Kit is available for US$99.00
The RZ200 AVR Z-Link Demonstration Kit is available for US$499.00
All kits include a fully featured 802.15.4 media access controller software stack at no extra cost.
About Atmel
Atmel is a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of microcontrollers, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory and radio frequency (RF) components. Leveraging one of the industry's broadest intellectual property (IP) technology portfolios, Atmel is able to provide the electronics industry with complete system solutions. Focused on consumer, industrial, security, communications, computing and automotive markets, Atmel ICs can be found Everywhere You Are(R).
NOTE: Atmel(R), logo and combinations thereof, Everywhere You Are(R), AVR(R) and others are registered trademarks, Z-Link(TM), and others are trademarks of Atmel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Other terms and product names may be the trademarks of others.
Information:
AVR Z-Link product information may be retrieved at http://www.atmel.com/products/avr/z-link.
Press Contacts:
Philippe Faure, Marketing Communications Manager - Microcontrollers
Phone: +33-2-40-18-18-87, Email: philippe.faure@nto.atmel.com
Veronique Sablereau, Corporate Communications Manager - Europe
Phone: +33-1-30-60-70-68, Fax: + 49-71-31-67-24-23,
Email: veronique.sablereau@atmel.com
Helen Perlegos, Public Relations - USA and Asia Pacific Rim
Phone: +1-408-487-2963, Email: hperlegos@atmel.com
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 membership comprises technology providers and original equipment manufacturers worldwide. Membership is open to all.
Additional information can be found at www.zigbee.org.
Web site: http://www.atmel.com
Philippe Faure, Marketing Communications Manager - Microcontrollers, +33-2-40-18-18-87, or philippe.faure@nto.atmel.com, or Veronique Sablereau, Corporate Communications Manager - Europe, +33-1-30-60-70-68, or fax, +49-71-31-67-24-23, or veronique.sablereau@atmel.com, or Helen Perlegos, Public Relations - USA and Asia Pacific Rim, +1-408-487-2963, or hperlegos@atmel.com
