Date: 07/06/2012

Scalable Kinetis wireless solutions from Freescale for ZigBee smart energy version 2.0

Freescale Semiconductor has expanded its Kinetis microcontroller (MCU) portfolio with the wireless solution built on the ARM Cortex-M4 processor for smart energy, smart metering and building control applications. Freescale's new generation of Kinetis wireless solutions provides performance and security in a scalable ZigBee platform.

Freescale has designed the Kinetis KW20 wireless MCU family for the future ZigBee Smart Energy 2.0 and Internet protocol specifications. The Kinetis KW20 wireless MCU integrates an ARM Cortex-M4 processor, a MC13242 RF transceiver and a feature set to provide a reliable, secure, ZigBee platform. Designers can select the KW20 MCU single-chip solution or choose to combine the RF transceiver with a corresponding Kinetis MCU. The microcontroller unit features up to 512 KB of flash memory, 64 KB of RAM, cryptology accelerator and IEEE 802.15.4-compliant radio.

"The Kinetis KW20 wireless MCU provides the performance to handle smart energy applications' memory and security needs, while giving designers the ultimate in flexibility," said Bruno Baylac, director of Freescale's metering, medical & connectivity solutions business. "By integrating ZigBee connectivity with our award-winning Kinetis MCU family, we are helping customers future-proof their systems while gaining a higher-performance radio and extra security."

The KW20 wireless MCU and MC13242 RF transceiver provide RF performance by reducing power consumption and increasing link budget. The transceiver features antenna diversity, which improves RF reliability, especially for conditions where multipath interference occurs. The KW20 wireless MCU and MC13242 transceiver are designed to reduce transmit and receive power, and a low-power run mode optimizes energy use.

The KW20 wireless MCU and MC13242 offer dual personal area network (PAN) support, enabling a single device to communicate wirelessly on two ZigBee networks. This helps eliminate the need for multiple radios to connect different home automation and smart energy networks.

Freescale plans to offer alpha samples of the Kinetis KW20 wireless MCUs (KW21D256V, KW21D512V and KW22D512V) and the MC13242 RF transceiver, as well as software and ZigBee protocol stacks, in Q3 2012.

For more information www.freescale.com/KW20