Date: 23/04/2012

Twisted pair networks development board offered by NXP and On Semi

ON Semiconductor and NXP Semiconductors have introduced evaluation board and complete reference design for power efficient twisted pair (TP) networks. The evaluation board is undergoing the final phases of formal KNX certification.

"This new twisted pair networks development board has been specifically designed to assist building automation customers by simplifying their design process with a ready-to-implement, energy efficient KNX TP solution for applications such as lighting switches and control, HVAC control, shutters and occupancy detection," said Ryan Cameron, vice president of industrial and timing products for ON Semiconductor. "By teaming up with NXP, we were able to jointly create a complete, highly power efficient solution that enables customers to reduce both their development costs and time to market for KNX applications based on Cortex-M processor family."

"The stability and flexibility of KNX make it a tremendously popular choice for intelligent wired home and building automation networks. This evaluation board will help developers create cost-efficient KNX designs very quickly, while taking advantage of the very low active power consumption of the NXP Cortex-M0 microcontroller, as well as its powerful 32-bit architecture," said Jan Willem Vogel, senior director of marketing, appliances, energy and automation segment, NXP Semiconductors.

The TP evaluation board and reference design features NXP's Cortex-M0 microcontroller and ON Semiconductor's soon to be launched NCN5120 receiver-transmitter IC.

1. The first evaluation boards will be available with the NXP LPC1227 microcontroller. Based on the ARM Cortex-M0 processor, NXP's LPC1100 and LPC1200 microcontrollers provide solutions for home and building automation products. The LPC1100 and LPC1200 series include up to 128 KB Flash and 8 KB SRAM. The performance levels of 45 DMIPS delivers resources to run a KNX stack. A certified implementation of the KNX system B is now available for the LPC1200 at Weinzierl Engineering (www.weinzierl.de).

2. ON Semiconductor's NCN5120 receiver-transmitter IC is used in KNX twisted pair networks (KNX TP1-256). It supports the connection of actuators, sensors, microcontrollers, switches or other applications in a building network. Featuring built-in mixed-signal technology, the NCN5120 integrates the analog front end, digital processing capability and power supply features in a monolithic integrated circuit. It provides a 20 volt (V) regulator and two DC-DC converters generating a fixed 3.3 V and an adjustable 3.3 V to 21 V regulated voltage from the bus with 100 milliamp drive capability each. KNX certification of the device is in the final phases.

Full production of the device is expected to start during the third quarter of 2012.

The TP evaluation board and reference design will be available for ordering from NXP starting in May 2012.

For more information, visit http://www.nxp.com/applications/lighting/wired-lighting-networks/knx.html