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| EMBER UNVEILS EM300 SERIES |
Ember introduced, earlier this month, its new EM300 series ZigBee semiconductors. The EM300 Series are the industry’s first ZigBee System-on-Chips (SoCs) based on the 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 processor. The chips feature the highest wireless networking performance, application code space and lowest power consumption in the industry. High code density allows the EM300 series to accommodate the most sophisticated applications, and excellent immunity to other 2.4 GHz devices allows for reliable co-existence. Ember introduced two products of the new chip family:
EM351 – integrates a programmable ARM Cortex-M3 processor, IEEE 802.15.4 RF transceiver, 128 KB Flash, 12 KB RAM and EmberZNet PRO network protocol stack supporting the ZigBee PRO Feature Set
EM357 - optimized for applications that require more memory, it has 192 KB Flash and incorporates all the other characteristics and features of the EM351
The EM300 series is tightly integrated with the EmberZNet PRO stack software that fully supports the ZigBee PRO feature set. Using Ember's InSight Development Environment, and the vast tools ecosystem available for the ARM processor, developers will be able to build and debug applications that perform better and more securely in even the most challenging wireless environments.
"Smart metering is revolutionizing energy management and grid reliability," said Letha McLaren, Global Product Manager at Landis+Gyr. "We are committed to delivering leading-edge smart grid solutions, and the product components we receive from Ember, such as the EM300 Series SoCs, play an important role in providing the features and performance required by our customers."
"Elster is pleased to be integrating the EM357 into our market-leading EnergyAxis smart metering system” said Victor Sitton, Vice President of Product Marketing at Elster. “The EM300 Series allows us to provide our customers with a cost effective ZigBee-enabled smart metering solution for demand response, load control, pricing and customer communications. In addition, the ultra low power consumption profile of the EM357 is also advantageous for Elster and its customers. While the energy saved on an individual meter basis may be small, when scaled across hundreds of thousands of devices, it can mean significant energy savings for our utility customers. This not only saves utilities money, it has a positive impact on the environment as well."
Click Here to view full announcement.
Click Here for product information.
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| MEET EMBER AT UPCOMING EVENTS |
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ZigBee Developers' Conference, Munich, Germany — June 30–July 1, 2009
After two successful years, ZigBee is returning to Munich for the 3rd annual Developers' Conference. Ember, along with its distributor for Central Europe, Atlantik Elektronik, and partner Digi International, is a Silver Sponsor of the event. Dave Egan, Product Marketing Director at Ember, will present "ZigBee Technical Overview" and Skip Ashton, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Ember, will present "ZigBee Chip and Network Performance Benchmarking and the Impact on Typical System Operation" at the conference.
More details are available at the event website
Wireless Japan, Tokyo, Japan — July 22–24
Expo Comm Wireless Japan is an annual event specializing in Wireless & Mobile networks, Personal Area Networks, Internet ITS, Home networks, and other wireless technologies. It brings buyers and sellers together at the hub of Japan's wireless market.
More details are available at the event website
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| TECH TIPS |
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With the proliferation of ZigBee networks for Smart Energy and Home Automation, it is important that systems are designed to ensure they join the proper network. The ZigBee specification requires that all nodes keep their "permit joining" flag set to FALSE except during network setup and maintenance. However, application developers need to account for the possibility of a joining device being set up within range of multiple networks that happen to allow joining, rather than just the network of interest.
The latest EmberZNet releases (3.3 and later) offer an easier way to iterate through all of the networks that are open for joining. The function emberScanForJoinableNetwork begins such a scan. The function emberJoinableNetworkFound-Handler is then called for each network found that currently permits joining. Each network can then be tested. In Smart Energy, this most likely means trying to join with your preconfigured key. For Home Automation, you would probably be looking for a particular service with a match descriptor request. If the network is not the right one, you can leave and go on to the next one with emberScanForNextJoinableNetwork. Each network join test has to take less than 30 seconds. After that time, the memory used to store the scan results are freed. The results of the scan are likely out of date by then any way (e.g., a network that was permitting join might no longer be doing so). The initial function (emberScanForJoinableNetwork) can be called at any time to start the scan over.
The older libraries can also be used, but more care needs to be taken in order to ensure you are trying all of the networks available. The functions here are also available on the EM260 with the ezsp- prefix.
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| FEATURED PARTNER |
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 ARM has partnered with Ember to integrate the ARM Cortex-M3 processor into Ember’s next-generation ZigBee semiconductors, setting the bar for high performance and low power consumption. ARM designs the technology that lies at the heart of advanced digital products. With partners like Ember, the company provides a total system solution that offers a fast, reliable path to market for leading electronics companies.
The ARM Cortex M-3 processor is the leading 32-bit RISC processor. It delivers outstanding computational performance and system response to interrupts, while meeting low cost requirements. Its small core footprint, reduced pin count, low power consumption and industry-leading code density enable the use of smaller memories.
The partnership will deliver sophisticated solutions for applications such as smart energy, home area networks, home health care and security systems.
Click Here for more information.
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