Extending the platform: Network-ready system-on-chip products

-- Control Engineering, 11/14/2006

Hayward, CA—Dust Networks is extending its product platform to include network-ready system-on-chip (SoC) products, the company announced today. The new offerings combine extremely low-power radio technology with the Time Synchronized Mesh Protocol (TSMP) in an easy-to-integrate mote-on-chip (MoC) that reportedly sets new power and performance benchmarks for reliable wireless sensor networking.

MoC products require no external components and no embedded programming, reducing OEM development time and cost for wireless sensor networking. SoC products provide a quantum reduction in power consumption, using 80% less power than comparable commercially available radios. The decrease in power use provides flexibility when designing battery-operated or power scavenging monitoring and control devices. Dust Networks' SmartMesh-XD line introduces SOC-based motes and managers in standards-based IEEE 802.15.4 compliant, 2.4 GHz and narrow-band 900 MHz versions. Product samples in 900 MHz are available today; 802.15.4 standard 2.4 GHz samples will be available early in 2007.

'With the recent industry announcements and standards development activity in the industrial market, our OEM customers are seeing accelerating demand for wireless monitoring and control solutions,' said Joy Weiss, CEO of Dust Networks.

'TSMP-based networks have set the bar in the industry for reliability and low power consumption,' added Kris Pister, Dust Networks, CTO. 'By combining TSMP with advances in low power radio technology, Dust has pushed the bar even higher, enabling dramatic reductions in power consumption in a broad range of wireless sensor networking applications.'

In other recent Control Engineering coverage on wireless, click here to read: 'Research: ZigBee looks good for wireless mesh.'

Control Engineering Daily News Desk
Peter Welander, process industries editor
Jeanine Katzel, senior editor