Front-end modules suit Smart Grid applications

RF Micro Devices Inc. announces it is teaming with Ember Corp. to introduce ZigBee front-end modules (FEMs) for smart grid applications that give utilities and consumers more control over how they monitor and save energy. ZigBee is a global wireless networking standard for monitoring and control in a variety of applications such as energy management, safety and security, lighting, and appliances. RFMD's new ZigBee FEM product family helps companies bring new ZigBee products to market faster, while dramatically reducing the number of components required and the size, cost, and power consumption of smart grid FEMs.

While RFMD's newest ZigBee FEMs can be used with any ZigBee application, the product family initially targets smart grid and smart energy applications such as smart meters, demand response, and home area network (HAN) devices. Beyond smart energy, the ZigBee FEM family is also designed for industrial applications and any other wireless sensing and control applications that demand low power consumption, high performance, and reliability. The new ZigBee FEM family includes the RF6525, RF6515, and RF6535, which are optimized to operate with the Ember EM300 Series system-on-chip (SoCs) — EM351 and EM357 — as well as Ember's EM250 SoC and EM260 network co-processor.

For more information, contact Ember Corp., 47 Farnsworth St., Boston, MA 02210. Phone: (617) 951-0200; or RF Micro Devices Inc., 7628 Thorndike Rd., Greensboro, NC 27409. Phone: (336) 664-1233.