Sensinode recently announced support for the next-generation CC2530 radio chip from Texas Instruments.
http://www.sensinode.com/EN/news/sensinode-ltd.-targets-smart-grid-applications.html
This new chip is an exciting development on the SoC front, and compliments the general industry trend towards SoC radio technology. Our Sensinode team is excited about this new chip which gives us much better performance in terms of receiver sensitivity and transmit power (= better range). In addition the processor core has several improvements over the CC2430. The new chip has a huge amount of flash now at 250 kB. Although this may be needed by ZigBee Pro stacks, which are very complex, Sensinode’s NanoStack 2.0 needs only the 64 kB version of the chip. As the CC2530 is available in 128kB, 64kB and 32kB versions – that is a direct cost savings.
The transaction to a new chip generation takes a long time – and the CC2530 is only sampling now. I hope to see Sensinode CC2530-based products late this year. As this is fully compatible with our current 6LoWPAN network products based on the current CC2430 – this transition is a smooth one.
This compliments Sensinode’s earlier announcement for NanoStack 2.0 support for the TI Sub-GHz CC1110 chip, which shows how flexible 6LoWPAN is over various radio technologies. At only 32 kB of ROM and 4 kB or RAM, it also is also shows how small a complete wireless IPv6 stack can get. Sub-Ghz 6LoWPAN networks are extremely interesting in terms incredible range and the avoidance of 2.4GHz interference. In the Smart Metering market, Sub-GHz 6LoWPAN is receiving tremendous interest. New Sub-GHz versions of Sensinode products will be available already 3Q-2009.
This week the IP Smart Object Alliance converged in Las Vegas for a live global interop event at Networld / Interop 2009. In addition to a stand in Las Vegas with live wireless embedded sensor devices and routers, tens of companies from all over the world participated live by connecting devices from their remote sites to a visualization application server provided by SAP running in France. This event showed that 6LoWPAN, IPv6 and IPv4 devices from around the world could be globally interoperable without the use of complex gateways.
As an active IPSO promoter it was exciting to watch the interop event preperation and excitement both in Sensinode’s engineering team and at a huge range of member companies. Our CTO, Mikko Saarnivala attending the event in person. Most interesting is the wide variety of companies involved with IPSO from chip makers, network providers, backend systems, system integrators and even end-users. So congradulations to IPSO on the successful event! The alliance just hit 50 members and will have its first anniversary this summer. Next I am looking forward to a next stage in interop, where multi-vendor 6LoWPAN networks are tested over-the-air and over the backbone using the latest HC and ND specifications.
Last week the ZigBee Alliance made a ground-breaking announcement -
ZigBee Alliance Plans Further Integration of Internet Protocol Standards
What this means in practice is that future versions of ZigBee specifications will incorporate IETF 6LoWPAN and ROLL IPv6 standards. In practice the most straight-forward way to achieve this is by adapting the ZigBee Application Layer (ZAL) over UDP, as specified in http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-tolle-cap-00.txt.
I am very excited about this – and believe this is a win-win for the whole industry. This lets the ZigBee Alliance, IPSO, the IETF and the IEEE (802.15.4) work in the same direction with much greater impact on achieving the Internet of Things. My own bet was that we would see ZigBee/IP in 2010 – great that it came a year early!
According to the press release and what I have seen happening in the industry – ZigBee has received a lot of pressure from the energy industry and chip makers to take advantage of native IP technology. This recent ZigBee alliance with Homeplug surely helped the decision as well. Texas Instruments was the first chip maker to make a press release with their strong support of ZigBee’s announcement, here at Sensinode we’re proud to be TI’s 3rd party partner for IP networking -
Texas Instruments supports ZigBee Alliance plan to integrate Internet Protocol standards for smart energy applications
