Best-in-Class Transceiver Targets Industrial, Medical and Security Markets with Industry's Highest Levels of Integration and Lowest Power Consumption

 

Feb 23, 2016

 

ALISO VIEJO, Calif., Feb. 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Microsemi Corporation (Nasdaq: MSCC), a leading provider of semiconductor solutions differentiated by power, security, reliability and performance, today announced its extremely low power sub-GHz radio frequency (RF) transceiver for industrial, security and medical applications. In addition to its best-in-class low power characteristics, the new ZL70550 combines high performance wireless capability, a high level of integration and an extremely small footprint at competitive pricing. The ZL70550 is well-suited for wireless applications operating on coin-cell batteries or energy harvesters, such as electronic shelf labels, retail asset tracking, process control, wearable monitoring, medical diagnostics and ECG.

 

With annual chipset volumes reaching 450 million in 2015, the wireless sensor market is experiencing "hypergrowth" according to On World Inc.'s recent market study. Although this market is dominated by Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee solutions, many applications require much lower power characteristics in order to operate for years on very small batteries.

"Many medical and industrial customers have applications where changing the battery is a complex and expensive operation that often exceeds the cost of the system itself," said Francois Pelletier, product line director at Microsemi. "By leveraging the same intellectual property we have successfully developed for implantable pacemakers and hearing aids where power consumption cannot be compromised, we are able to provide the lowest power wireless link in an extremely small form factor that is easy to deploy."

Operating in the 779-965 megahertz (MHz) unlicensed industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) frequency bands, the ZL70550 consumes only 2.8 milliamps (mA) while transmitting at -10 decibel-milliwatts (dBm) output power and a similar 2.5 mA during reception. It offers the industry's lowest sleep state current of 10 nanoamperes (nA), making it ideal for low-duty cycle applications. As a flexible solution that can be tailored to various application requirements, the ZL70550 operates between 1.7 volts (V) to 3.6 V and offers variable output power and data rates up to 200 kilobits per second (kbps). For applications that require extended wireless range, the transmitter output power, receiver input sensitivity and data rate can be adjusted to give a link budget up to -107 dBm while minimally increasing the power consumption of the device.

"Working with the Microsemi team to implement its ZL70550 into our medical devices has been groundbreaking, as the product's extremely low power, RF input sensitivity and small size provide the optimal solution for our specific needs," said John Walmsley, vice president product development at Starfish Medical in Victoria, B.C. "We are leveraging the unique capabilities of this solution to ensure successful deployment of our latest innovations, and we look forward to future advancements from Microsemi as Starfish Medical continues to create breakthrough products for a number of medical specialty areas."

The ZL70550 is highly integrated and offered in a very small 3x2 mm chip scale package. Other than the antenna and, in some cases, its matching network, only a crystal, resistor and two coupling capacitors are required.

The device includes an advanced media access controller (MAC) that performs most link support functions, received signal strength indications (RSSI), clear channel assessment, Sniff, preamble and synchronization, packetization, whitening and forward error correction (FEC). The Microsemi optional Z-Star protocol enables rapid product development and offers a full star configuration to allow a full network to be deployed.

Development Tools for the ZL70550
Microsemi offers a wireless sensor network (WSN) evaluation kit and an application development kit (ADK) to ease and accelerate hardware and software development. The evaluation kit includes one USB hub and one accelerometer sensor node and demonstrates a wireless sensor network application using the ZL70550's built-in Z-Star protocol. The ADK provides all the necessary hardware and software to demonstrate the performance of the ZL70550 and is intended to be used as a tool to support prototype development. 

Product Availability
Samples and evaluation kits of the ZL70550 are available now, with the ZL70550 available in a 5x5 mm QFN or 3x2 mm CSP package. The ZLE70550BADB WSN evaluation kit is priced at $200. For additional ZL70550 product information, visit http://www.microsemi.com/products/ultra-low-power-wireless/sub-ghz-radio-transceivers or email sales.support@microsemi.com.

Product Demonstrations in Hall 1, Booth #660 at Embedded World Feb. 23-25
Microsemi will be showcasing its ZL70550 at the upcoming Embedded World Exhibition and Conference Feb. 23-25, 2016, with product demonstrations offered in Microsemi's booth, located in Hall 1 #660. The event, which will be held at the Exhibition Center in Nuremberg, Germany, enables attendees to experience the whole world of embedded systems for security in electronic systems, distributed intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), e-mobility and energy efficiency.

About Microsemi's Industrial, IoT, Automotive, and Medical Products
Microsemi is a provider of industrial, automotive, medical, and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, products and services. These include secure, reliable and low power field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and system-on-chip (SoC) FPGAs, industrial Ethernet switches and PHYs, PoE integrated circuits (ICs) and midspans, 1588 precision timing and synchronization devices, comprehensive drivers and interfaces ICs including sensor interface devices, power discretes such as Silicon Carbide (SiC) MOSFET and power modules, state-of-the-art audio processing solutions, extremely low power sub-GHz radio frequency (RF) transceivers, and its Security Center of Excellence and security/WhiteboxCRYPTO™ solutions. For more information about Microsemi's complementary product portfolio for industrial applications, visit http://www.microsemi.com/applications/industrial. For more information on Microsemi's security products and technologies, visit http://www.microsemi.com/applications/security, and for more information on Microsemi's product directory, visit http://www.microsemi.com/products/. 

About Microsemi
Microsemi Corporation (Nasdaq: MSCC) offers a comprehensive portfolio of semiconductor and system solutions for communications, defense & security, aerospace and industrial markets. Products include high-performance and radiation-hardened analog mixed-signal integrated circuits, FPGAs, SoCs and ASICs; power management products; timing and synchronization devices and precise time solutions, setting the world's standard for time; voice processing devices; RF solutions; discrete components; enterprise storage and communication solutions, security technologies and scalable anti-tamper products; Ethernet solutions; Power-over-Ethernet ICs and midspans; as well as custom design capabilities and services. Microsemi is headquartered in Aliso Viejo, Calif., and has approximately 4,800 employees globally. Learn more at www.microsemi.com.

Microsemi and the Microsemi logo are registered trademarks or service marks of Microsemi Corporation and/or its affiliates. Third-party trademarks and service marks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Any statements set forth in this news release that are not entirely historical and factual in nature, including without limitation statements related to its extremely low power sub-GHz radio frequency (RF) transceiver for industrial, security and medical applications, and its potential effects on future business, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations and are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. The potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, such factors as rapidly changing technology and product obsolescence, potential cost increases, variations in customer order preferences, weakness or competitive pricing environment of the marketplace, uncertain demand for and acceptance of the company's products, adverse circumstances in any of our end markets, results of in-process or planned development or marketing and promotional campaigns, difficulties foreseeing future demand, potential non-realization of expected orders or non-realization of backlog, product returns, product liability, and other potential unexpected business and economic conditions or adverse changes in current or expected industry conditions, difficulties and costs of protecting patents and other proprietary rights, inventory obsolescence and difficulties regarding customer qualification of products. In addition to these factors and any other factors mentioned elsewhere in this news release, the reader should refer as well to the factors, uncertainties or risks identified in the company's most recent Form 10-K and all subsequent Form 10-Q reports filed by Microsemi with the SEC. Additional risk factors may be identified from time to time in Microsemi's future filings. The forward-looking statements included in this release speak only as of the date hereof, and Microsemi does not undertake any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

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