10 July 2014

RFaxis partners with GreenPeak for smart home/smart living, home automation and Internet of Things initiatives

Fabless semiconductor firm RFaxis Inc of Irvine, CA, USA, which designs RF semiconductors and embedded antenna solutions for wireless connectivity and cellular mobility, has partnered with ‘smart home’ low-power radio communication semiconductor firm GreenPeak Technologies of Utrecht, The Netherlands on a chip-set reference design to address the needs of the emerging ‘Internet of Things’ market opportunities for home automation and smart home/smart living initiatives. GreenPeak has selected the RFaxis RFX2411 CMOS ZigBee/ISM RF front-end IC (RFeIC) to pair with its GP711 ZigBee PRO/RF4CE SoC (system-on-chip).

The combination is said to provide simplified RF design with robust RF link quality that developers require for efficient and effective Internet of Things (IoT) performance in a variety of home automation/smart home applications.
“Their fully integrated and cost-effective RF front-ends are ideal for our GP711 ZigBee PRO chips, which will help us to accelerate our plans within our strategic market targets,” says Vincent Vermeer, GreenPeak’s director of marketing and business development.

The RFX2411 is a fully integrated, single-chip, single-die RFeIC that incorporates all the RF functionality needed for IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee, wireless sensor network, and any other wireless systems in the 2.4GHz ISM (industrial, scientific & medical) band. Its architecture integrates the power amplifier (PA), low-noise amplifier (LNA), transmit and receive switching circuitry with antenna diversity support, the associated matching network, and the harmonic filter, all in a CMOS single-chip device. Suitable for high-power applications like home automation, smart house/smart living and smart power environments, the RFX2411 combines superior performance, high sensitivity and efficiency, low noise, small form factor, and low cost, claims RFaxis.

The GP711 SoC is an IEEE 802.15.4 communication controller for integration into a ZigBee RF4CE, ZigBee PRO, and/or ZigBee IP controller or node. With its multi-stack operation, it supports simultaneous operation of multiple ZigBee profiles inRF4CE and ZigBee PRO/IP running in the host processor. It is fully compliant with the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, providing robust spread spectrum data communication and optimized for low cost while providing superior performance in smart-home applications, it is claimed. GreenPeak’s solutions are targeted for smart home/smart living, IoT and M2M (machine-to-machine) communications market segments, covering a wide range of products such as home automation gateways, home security, home healthcare, set-top boxes, lighting control, and smart energy.

Tags: RFaxis CMOS

Visit: www.rfaxis.com

Visit: www.greenpeak.com