Ember Unveils Industry's Highest Performance ZigBee Chips

New EM300 Series first ZigBee system-on-chips (SoCs) based on the 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 processor

BOSTON, MA and CAMBRIDGE, UK -- JUNE 8, 2009 -- Ember, a leader in wireless networking technology, today unveiled the EM300 Series, its next-generation ZigBee chip family that packs the industry’s highest wireless networking performance and application code space into the lowest power-consuming chip set.

Thanks to its unmatched performance, high code density and power efficiency, the EM300 family will be a boon to developers seeking to build sophisticated products for smart energy and home area networks (HANs) as well as home and building automation. It offers ZigBee developers a combination of a popular ARM® microprocessor, a powerful IEEE 802.15.4 radio and larger memory for increasingly demanding sensor network applications.   

The new EM300 Series products include:

• EM351 – integrates an ARM Cortex-M3 processor, 2.4 GHz 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 – specifically optimized for more sophisticated applications that require additional memory, it has 192 KB Flash while incorporating all the other characteristics and features of the EM351

The performance of the EM300 Series is highlighted by excellent range – twice that of the competition – virtually eliminating the need for an external power amplifier (PA) in Europe and Asia, significantly better message latency and data throughput and at least 25 percent longer battery life than any other solution currently available in the market.

“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 SoC, play an important role in providing the features and performance required by our customers.”

One of the key features enabling its unmatched performance and functionality is the ARM Cortex-M3 processor which delivers exceptional code density, computational performance and system response to interrupts. In addition to its excellent performance characteristics, the ARM Cortex-M3 core boasts an extensive support infrastructure.

“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.”

Complete ZigBee Solutions

The EM300 Series SoCs are tightly integrated with EmberZNet PRO, the industry’s most widely deployed ZigBee-compliant stack. EmberZNet PRO fully supports the ZigBee PRO Feature Set including the ZigBee Smart Energy and Home Automation profiles.

Using Ember’s InSight™ Development Environment combined with the vast ecosystem of tools available for the ARM processor developers can rapidly build and debug ZigBee applications that perform better and more securely in the most challenging wireless environments.

“With the quickly expanding market for ZigBee in general and smart energy in particular, our customers are demanding even higher levels of performance and software capabilities that differentiate their ZigBee solutions. They want more powerful processors and radios, stronger security and more memory space to accommodate their code, all without consuming additional power. The EM300 Series delivers on all counts,” said Bob LeFort, Ember CEO.

EM300 Series Details

The EM300 Series delivers outstanding wireless RF performance with a total Link Budget up to 109 dB. Its high transmit power virtually eliminates the need for an external PA in most applications, though it can easily accommodate one if designed.

The EM300 Series also offers the lowest sleep current – as low as 400 nA – of any ZigBee system on the market. Developers can take advantage of EmberZNet PRO’s networking library to incorporate short wake cycles, and on-board clocks provide optimized wake-sleep cycles to conserve power.

Pricing and Availability

Priced under $3 in high volumes, the EM300 Series SoCs will be generally available in late Q3 2009.

ZigBee: Wireless Control That Simply Works

The ZigBee Alliance is an association of companies working together to enable reliable, cost-effective, low-power, wirelessly networked monitoring and control products based on an open global standard. The ZigBee Alliance is a rapidly growing, non-profit industry consortium of leading semiconductor manufacturers, technology providers, OEMs, and end-users worldwide. Membership is open to all. Additional information can be found at http://www.zigbee.org.  

About Ember

Ember Corporation develops ZigBee wireless networking technology that enables companies involved in energy technologies – enertech – to help make buildings and homes smarter, consume less energy, operate more efficiently, and keep people comfortable and safe. Ember’s low-power wireless technology can be embedded into a wide variety of devices to be part of a self-organizing mesh network. Ember is headquartered in Boston and has its radio development center in Cambridge, England, and distributors worldwide. The company is a promoter and Board member of the ZigBee Alliance and its platform is the “Golden Suite” for 802.15.4/ZigBee interoperability testing.