Date: 11/08/2010

Low power FSK transceiver from austriamicrosystems for BAN/MBAN

austriamicrosystems (AMS) has introduced the AS3900 27 MHz FSK (frequency shift keying) low power transceiver offering built-in star network management protocol. AMS claims it is the only such transceiver operating in the 27 MHz worldwide ISM (industrial, scientific and medical) band. Operation in this band avoids the interference found in the popular but cluttered 2.4 GHz band and results in a lower amount of energy being absorbed by the human body (SAR or specific absorption rate). This is a key consideration for transmitters operated close to the human body such as a BAN (body area network) or MBAN (medical body area network).

The on-chip hardwired star network protocol simplifies product design by saving external or internal microcontroller. The low powered transceiver consumes 2.5 µA in polling mode, and typically 3.8 and 4.9 mA in receive and transmit modes respectively, and include the power required to manage the star network.

Bruce Ulrich, Director of Marketing Consumer and Communications at austriamicrosystems, stated, "With the AS3900 FSK transceiver, austriamicrosystems ushers in a new era of simplicity into the low powered transceiver market space. No longer do systems design engineers need to consult RF and network protocol experts when integrating low powered networked transceivers into their designs, and time to market for their products is greatly reduced."

The AS3900 is suggested for applications such as medical and intelligent sporting goods, industrial automation, body area networks and any short range sensor network. The AS3900 can work with small PCB antenna that resonates at 27 MHz. AMS says properties of 27MHz transmissions enable better penetration of fluids than 2.4GHz, and prevent reflections from giving errant range estimations using RSSI (received signal strength indication).

The AS3900 transmits data at up to 212 Kbit/s and integrates a functions such as power amplifier, clock, 24 bits of one-time programmable memory, battery level detection, power on reset (POR) and system timers. Digital RSSI, onboard CRC (cyclic redundancy check) and a bi-directional SDI bus (serial digital interface) allows for easy system integration.

Package: 5x5 mm 28-pin QFN package

Operating temperature range: -40 to +85°C.

Price: Priced at US$2.25 for 1000 piece quantities.