TI targets sub-GHz 802.15.4g for home automation with 1Mbit/s transceiver
The SimpleLink CC1200 transceiver, developed by the Chipcon design group in Norway, is aimed at Sub-1GHz wireless connectivity for Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and Home Area Networks (HAN) in the smart grid, home and building automation, and alarm and security system applications.
"The CC1200 is the fifth addition to the performance family with the high output power of +16dBm and the -123dBm," said Volker Prüller, Marketing Director for Texas Instruments Wireless Connectivity. "The difference is on the narrowband performance and the data rate, with 200kbit/s for other devices, the CC1200 is 1Mbit/s. There’s two reasons – there is a new standard in 802.15.4g and that calls for 1Mbit/s with FSK modulation and fulfilling that standard which we expect to be very important for home automation. The second more practical benefit of that is network maintenance. 802.15.4g also supports meshing and if you have a large network you date you have to be really fast to update all the nodes. You don’t use it continuously but there may be peak times when you have to rush the data through the network," he said.
The higher data rate can also be used to extend the range of a mesh network, as the effective rate halves for each ‘hop’ in the network.
"We have a few lead customers already engaged with the CC1200 working on 802.15.4g designs – I would expect to see system in pilots next year," said Prüller.
"Some are developing their own expertise and prefer to build their own stacks, others are asking for our support. We are not porting a full stack with all the profiles but we are working with early adopters and who knows perhaps we will offer an off-the-shelf stack in the future but right now its not the case."
"We are not jumping on every new standard, it is not clear to us which home automation standard will be dominant, if any will be dominant," he said. "I think what makes it very challenging is that it is highly fragmented and the people that are installing the systems are not the same people that make the purchasing decisions."
Cost is also an issue he says, and a sub-1GHz standard could deliver lower cost solutions. "If you look at the C1200 and compare it with Zigbee Cortex-M3 SoC devices, then just purely on 1000 units the Zigbee SoC is twice the cost," said Prüller. "It depends on the microcontroller that you put alongside it, you can achieve a similar solution cost." He points out that the MSP430F5438A microcontrollers can support IPv6 for a low power, low cost design, or combined with the CC2538 for a dual-band 2.4 GHz and sub-GHz ZigBee and 6LoWPAN solution.
The CC1200 supports legacy Sub-1 GHz systems, all IEEE 802.15.4g FSK modes with hardware packet handling as well as hardware AES security support and all Wireless M-Bus (wM-Bus) modes.
Pin-for-pin compatibility with TI’s CC1120 RF transceiver enables manufacturers to easily adopt the SimpleLink Sub-1 GHz CC1200 for new designs with higher data rates, AES security and 802.15.4g support. Additionally, the CC1200 is optimized to work with several other TI products such as the CC1190 power amplifier front end that provides up to +27 dBm operation in 868/915/920MHz bands and the TPS62730 DC/DC converter.
The SimpleLink CC1200 is available in a 5x5mm QFN 32 package for $2.20 in 1,000 unit volumes. The CC1200DK development kit and CC1200EMK (420-470 MHz or 868-930 MHz) evaluation modules are available for $299 and $99 respectively.
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