San Jose, CA — The AT86RF212 800/900 MHz IEEE 802.15.4 RF transceiver from Atmel Corporation targets low power wireless applications including ZigBee and claims an industry best RF performance with a link budget of up to 120 dB in the 800 MHz and 900 MHz ISM bands available in Europe and North America, respectively. The link budget is the result of the -110 dBm sensitivity offered by the device and the maximum output power of +10 dBm. The high link budget combined with the reduced path loss in the 800/900 MHz enables long range wireless communication without the use of costly external LNA or PA.
Designing products with the AT86RF212 chipset enables battery operated devices to run for many years on a single battery because of the device's low current consumption in both active and in sleep mode. The current consumption in receive mode is 9 mA and the consumption in transmit is 17 mA at a power output level of 5 dBm. The sleep mode current consumption is down to 0.2 µA.
Atmel claims that by selecting a 800/900 MHz radio chip for wireless applications delivers a range benefit of nearly 3 times compared to a 2.4 GHz device due to the reduced path loss on the lower frequencies. According to the company, adding the benefit of the high link budget of the AT86RF212 outperforms most solutions available in the industry today by as much as 10 times the range. This has been confirmed by initial range tests performed by Atmel partner MeshNetics, showing an outdoor range of about 6 km without the use of any external LNAs or PAs.
MeshNetics is a ZigBee House that has a partnership with Atmel for silicon and provides RF modules, ZigBee software and engineering services for OEMs and system integrators.
To support the wide range of wireless applications requested by the market, AT86RF212 handles multiple data rates. The 20/40 Kbit/s and 100/250 Kbit/s supported by the device is compliant to IEEE 802.15.4-2006. High speed data rates such as 200/400/1000 Kbit/s are also supported enabling wireless applications demanding more bandwidth.
Security is handled by an AES 128-bit onboard hardware engine. The security engine improves the overall system power efficiency and timing. The stand-alone 128-bit AES engine can be accessed in parallel to all PHY operational transactions and states using the SPI interface.
A datasheet is available.
For further information visit www.atmel.com.
