Date: 21/12/2009

ZigBee RF4CE protocol on PIC MCUs for RF remote controls and consumer electronics

Microchip has announced that it has achieved certification for its ZigBee RF4CE compliant platform that consists of its nanoWatt XLP eXtreme low power PIC microcontroller, the MRF24J40 IEEE 802.15.4 transceivers and FCC-certified modules, and the small memory footprint ZigBee RF4CE certified protocol stack. The ZigBee RF4CE protocol and XLP compliant platform is suitable for RF remote controls and consumer electronics.

"Microchip's RF4CE compliant platform provides the consumer electronics industry with a leading-edge implementation of the ZigBee Alliance's RF4CE protocol stack," said Steve Caldwell, director of Microchip's RF Products Division. "The RF4CE protocol running on Microchip's XLP families of PIC microcontrollers provides equipment designers with the world's lowest sleep currents, to maximize their product's battery life."

In addition to low power consumption, the compliant PIC XLP microcontrollers offer a wide range of integrated peripherals for capacitive touch sensing, USB and a host of analog functions. Free software is also provided to enable these peripherals, including Microchip's USB stacks and libraries, and mTouch sensing software. Together with its IEEE 802.15.4 compliant 2.4 GHz MRF24J40 transceiver and agency certified transceiver modules, Microchip provides a platform for implementing the new RF4CE protocol in RF-enabled remote controls and equipment.

Microchip says, that it offer tools for development with the PIC XLP microcontrollers, including the free MPLAB IDE, the MPLAB REAL ICE emulation system, the MPLAB ICD 3 in-circuit debugger, the PICkit 3 low-cost debugger/programmer and Microchip's free C compilers.

Availability: RF4CE protocol stack is available to Beta program participants, with general availability planned for March. The MRF24J40 transceiver and FCC certified modules are available now

For more details visit www.microchip.com