With European Utility Week 2014 in full swing, Atmel has unveiled a new family of wireless transceivers including the AT86RF215, AT86RF215M, and AT86RF215IQ. Expanding upon the Atmel | SMART metering portfolio, the new solutions address the industry’s low-cost, multi-protocol connectivity requirements for smart metering, smart lighting, home energy gateways and other industrial and automation equipment.
The first sampling device, AT86RF215, is the industry’s first dual-band sub-1GHz / 2.4GHz transceiver compliant to IEEE 802.15.4g-2012 and ETSI TS 102 887-1. Additionally, AT86RF215M is asingle band sub-1GHz transceiver, while the AT86RF215IQ is a dual-band I/Q radio. All three deliver an output power of up to 14dBm. With receiver sensitivities down to -123dBm, an outstanding link budget of 137dB can be achieved.
The AT86RF215 offers superior flexibility by supporting a variety of data rates with three modulation schemes: multi-rate and multi-regional frequency shift keying (MR-FSK), orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MR-OFDM), as well as offset quadrature phase-shift keying (MR-O-QPSK). This entails the physical layer used for ZigBee PRO and ZigBee IP. Simultaneous operation at sub-1GHz and 2.4GHz enables new capabilities and the right cost structure in smart metering, smart lighting, home energy gateways and other industrial and automation equipment.
Some of the family’s key features include:
- Fully integrated radio transceiver covering 389.5-510 MHz, 779-1020 MHz, and 2400-2483.5 MHz
- European bands at 863-870 MHz, 870-876 MHz, and 915-921 MHz
- Chinese bands at 470-510 MHz and 779-787 MHz
- North American band at 902-928 MHz
- Korean band at 917-923.5 MHz
- Japanese band at 920-928 MHz
- Worldwide ISM band at 2400-2483.5 MHz
- Supported PHYs (IEEE 802.15.4g-2012, IEEE 802.15.4- 2011, and proprietary modes)
- MR-FSK: 50…400 kbit/s with optional forward error correction and interleaving
- MR-OFDM: 50…2400 kbit/s
- MR-O-QPSK: 6.25…1000 kbit/s, 100…2000 kchip/s
- O-QPSK: 250…1000 kbit/s, 1000 and 2000 kchip/s
- Simultaneous operation at sub-1 GHz and 2.4 GHz
- Bi-directional differential RF signal ports, one for sub-1 GHz and one for 2.4 GHz
- SPI interface to access registers and frame buffers
- LVDS interface to access 13-bit I/Q data
- IEEE 802.15.4 MAC support • Frame filter
- FCS handling
- Automatic acknowledgement
- CCA with automatic transmit
- Industry-leading link budget
- Programmable TX output power up to +14 dBm
- Receiver sensitivity down to -123 dBm
- Low power supply voltage from 1.8V to 3.6V
- Low current consumption
- 30 nA in SLEEP mode
- 28 mA in RX mode
- 65 mA in TX mode @ 14 dBm output power
- Industrial temperature range from -40°C to +85°C
- 48-pin low-profile lead-free plastic QFN package
“We are excited to see the widespread adoption of standards-based connectivity solutions for the utility industry worldwide,” said Kourosh Boutorabi, Atmel Senior Director of Smart Energy Products. “Expanding our portfolio of smart metering solutions to include new wireless transceivers reinforces our commitment to serve this growing market. We are continuing to deliver new platform solutions for the smart energy market, including powerline carrier connectivity and industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of metering system-on-chip solutions.”
While initial samples and evaluation kits for the AT86RF215 are available now to lead customers, mass sampling is planned for Q1 2015 and volume production for Q3 2015.
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