News | February 14, 2006

Panasonic Launches Ember-enabled ZigBee Module

Boston - Panasonic Industrial Europe GmbH (PIE) unveiled a ZigBee-based modem module powered by Ember's semiconductors and software for OEMs wishing to enter the fast-growing ZigBee market. ZigBee is a global wireless industry standard designed for remote monitoring, control and sensor networks.

The new Panasonic PAN4570 module is one of the first products to employ Ember's EM250 "ZigBee system-on-a-chip (SoC)." The PAN4570 is a low-power transceiver designed to embed wireless mesh networking capabilities into products for applications in industrial controls, home automation, inventory management, automatic meter reading and environmental monitoring.

The EM250 is an 802.15.4/ZigBee semiconductor system that packs a programmable microprocessor, RF radio, ZigBee protocol stack and memory into a tiny, single-chip solution smaller than a shirt button. The EM250 enables PAN4570 customers to rapidly bring to market new wireless-enabled products while enjoying dramatic reductions in component size, cost and power consumption.

The PAN4570 module was designed by Panasonic's Wireless Components team at the European Technology Center (EuTC) in Germany.

"Ember is the ZigBee platform of choice, and offers the industry's most mature, feature-rich platforms of integrated hardware, software and development tools," said Ulrich Rittner, development manager at Panasonic-EuTC. "We believe the Ember-enabled PAN4570 will help our OEM customers create ZigBee-compliant wireless products significantly faster, easier and more profitably than current first-generation offerings."

Key features of the PAN4570 include:

  • Ember's EM250 system-on-chip, 128 kilobytes of flash memory, 5 kilobytes of RAM, 16-bit microcontroller, 2.4GHz CMOS radio semiconductor system;
  • EmberZNet 2.0, Ember's second-generation ZigBee-compliant network stack;
  • Ember's reliable application programming interface (API) for ease and speed in developing ZigBee applications;
  • An on-board, low-power regulator and three different power modes for increased battery.
  • Small size (20mm x 26.5mm x 3mm);
  • Very high sensitivity (-98 dBm) with low packet error rate (1%);
  • Operating temperature range of -40 degrees to +85 degrees Celsius.

"ZigBee enabling a world-renowned brand like Panasonic is a great design win for Ember," said Bob Metcalfe, chairman of Ember. "Panasonic's participation will bring a big boost to the embedded networking market."

The PAN4570 module will publicly debut at Embedded World 2006, in Nürnberg, Germany, Feb. 14-16, in Hall 12, Stand 346 of Atlantik Elektronik GmbH, Ember's distributor. Engineering samples of the module are already available.

SOURCE: Panasonic