Freescale Semiconductor is demonstrated a dual nework ZigBee controller based on its Kinetis ARM Cortex-M4 based microcontroller.
Multiple ZigBee networks may exist simultaneously in a home or building.A dual-network device can connect and actively participate in two separate networks.
The Cortex-M4-based microcontroller(KW20)has up to 512kbyte of flash and 64kbyte of SRAM,which should be enough memory to run both network protocol stacks on a single device and eliminating the need for a second MCU.
Freescale recognises the need to support multiple ZigBee networks and even different versions of protocols within a small area,said Bruno Baylac,general manager of Freescalea??s metering,medical and connectivity business.
Freescale believes the benefit of a hardware-based multi-protocol design is simplicity.
Our hardware implementation is less complex than software-only implementations,aid Baylac.
The hardware stores information for two networks,including the PAN ID,short and long network addresses and the RF channel.As a result the device can change between networks in as little as 64μs,said Freescale.
Also,if both networks are operating on the same RF channel,then the KW20 can filter network information on the fly,completely eliminating the need to switch between networks.
Dual-PAN functionality will be supported in Freescalea ZigBee protocol software and sample applications for the MC13242 and KW20 wireless MCUs,including the forthcoming ZigBee IP stack and ZigBee Smart Energy 2.0 standard.
