ZigBee Alliance

Members of the ZigBee Alliance (www.zigbee.org) have joined forces and are leveraging their wireless and utility expertise to fight the predicted global energy crisis. Given this commitment, the alliance has increased membership and expanded its ability to deliver solutions that are helping consumers, businesses and utilities improve efficiency, reduce the need for new power plants and save money. To date, the alliance enjoys strong endorsement of its energy management and efficiency solutions by utility industry and smart energy grid proponents.

As a result of alliance member efforts, more ZigBee products are being shipped to utility companies around the world than ever before. An example is Trilliant Networks' Micro Access Portal for ZigBee, which can be integrated into a range of components including smart thermostats, utility meters, load control devices or pole top repeaters. Built on IEEE 802.15.4 standards, it provides an extension of Trilliant Networks' wireless mesh-based advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) into ZigBee-based home automation networks.

MeshNetics and Atmel

MeshNetics (www.meshnetics.com) obtained ZigBee 2006 certification for its family of ZigBit 802.15.4/ZigBee OEM modules. Based on a chipset from Atmel Corporation (www.atmel.com), which consists of an ATmega1281 AVR flash microcontroller and an AT86RF230 RF transceiver, MeshNetics' ZigBeeNet is the first ZigBee-certified stack for the Atmel AVR Z-Link hardware platform.

Crabtree and Freescale Semiconductor

The South African electrical accessories manufacturer Crabtree (www.crabtree.co.za), introduced the iTRONIC home automation system, which allows homeowners to control a number of functions in their homes remotely via telephone or Internet. Because the system has the capability to take care of daily scheduled tasks including running a pool pump and irrigation system, as well as checking and adjusting the temperature and lighting, it provides consumers with a significant energy savings. The iTRONIC system is based on the low-power ZigBee-compliant platform from Freescale Semiconductor (www.freescale.com). Comprised of the MC13193 2.4-GHz RF transceiver and a low-voltage, low-power HCS08 MCU and software, Freescale's ZigBee-compliant platform provides a cost effective and easy-to-deploy solution that will enable iTRONIC to efficiently operate for many years.

Texas Instruments and Chipcon

Texas Instruments (www.ti.com) finalized its acquisition of Chipcon (www.chipcon.com) — a move that expands the company's high-performance analog portfolio and enables it to provide customers with industry-leading ZigBee-compliant solutions and a broad range of proprietary RFICs for use in innovative low-power wireless applications. The acquisition combines Chipcon's market-leading RF portfolio, technical support and development tools with TI's high-performance analog silicon technologies, systems expertise and sales network. Chipcon will continue to operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of TI.

Daintree Networks

Daintree Networks (www.daintree.net) shipped the first commercially available solution for the installation and commissioning of ZigBee-based wireless sensor and control networks — the Daintree sensor network analyzer (SNA). Daintree's commissioning functions are compatible with platforms from Ember, Freescale Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, and Integration Associates, with more coming soon.

Tendril and Texas Instruments

Tendril (www.tendrilinc.com) is expanding its collaboration with Texas Instruments (www.ti.com/zigbee) to accelerate customer deployments of ZigBee applications on TI's ZigBee 2006 Compliant Platform. Through this partnership, TI will initially include information about Tendril's network operating platform software in its developer kits. In the future, Tendril's software will be fully integrated with TI's ZigBee platform.

Jennic

Jennic (www.jennic.com) modules based on the JN5139 wireless microcontroller family have received full certification from the FCC and ETSI in the United States and Europe, respectively. System manufacturers implementing Jennic's modules in their IEEE802.15.4 and ZigBee applications can save weeks of time and costs in performing RF regulatory testing; thereby allowing products to be commissioned quicker.

Renesas Technology and ZMD AG

Renesas Technology (www.america.renesas.com) and ZMD AG (www.zmd.de) are working to incorporate ZMD's RF technology into Renesas microcontrollers to develop a 900 MHz band ZigBee chipset. The advanced chipset, which should be complete in 2008, is expected to accelerate the development of various types of IEEE802.15.4 and ZigBee systems.

One RF Technology

One RF Technology (www.one-rf.com) obtained ZigBee Compliant Platform (ZCP) certification for its TinyOne ZigBee OEM module based on the TI CC2420 radio chip. It is now the first European company to offer a ZCP with an in-house ZigBee stack based on the latest ZigBee 2006 specification.