A communications controller centric transceiver chip design architecture enables the third wave of wireless

This third wireless wave consists of wireless sense and control networks that can connect and control all kinds of equipment in our homes and businesses " from freezers to light switches, from consumer electronics (TV, DVD-player) and remote controls to sensors, for detection or protection, and to central door locking and window locking in our homes (as we are used to in our cars).

Unfortunately, using today's wireless technologies, most of those wireless sensors and controls require the use of a significant quantity of batteries creating environmental concerns (think toxic chemicals and heavy metals). They also present as a serious maintenance problem (continuously exchanging batteries). Therefore ultra low power wireless networks that require very little power are of great interest.

This includes systems that can run off of a single cell battery for the life of a device as well as wireless networks and sensors that can be powered by energy harvesting (sometimes called energy scavenging). Creating ultra low power wireless networks and systems that can run off the energy that is available in the environment instead of batteries is an exciting emerging technology.

The biggest technical challenge for developing these ultra low power sensor networks is managing the energy consumption without reducing range or functionality, like speed and standards compliance. The resulting elimination of battery replacement will then simplify maintenance and provide a higher level of ease of use and safety.

It is obvious that current consumption " milli-amps " and duty cycling are important in wireless sensor networks. However, minimizing current consumption is only part of the solution. There are several essential issues key to developing low power wireless sensor applications, but it all starts with the development of an ultra low power transceiver radio chips.

By using a communication controller centric chip design instead of a microcontroller centric design, along with synchronized wake-ups, it is possible to reduce overall power consumption by 65 percent or more.

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Figure 1: GreenPeak's communication controller-centric architecture versus traditional microcontroller centric approach. Most transceiver solutions require that the MCU be switched on the whole time during the transmission of a package. By using a communication controller, the MCU is only required to process the data to be transmitted or received.

Most low power radio networks rely on a processor centric approach that requires a microcontroller to handle all the intelligence for the transceiver. This requires the microcontroller to be awake the entire time that in turn requires additional power. By using a more energy efficient communication controller approach, the transceiver can transmit and receive the data independently from the microprocessor and the microprocessor is only awakened and used when it is needed to further process the data.