ZeroG Wireless, Microchip upgrade embedded Wi-Fi development kit software

SUNNYVALE & CHANDLER, USA: ZeroG Wireless, Inc., an innovator in low-power embedded Wi-Fi, and Microchip Technology Inc., a leading provider of microcontroller and analog semiconductors, announced the availability of the next generation of production qualified software for the companies' joint development kit.

Introduced only five months ago, the easy-to-implement, low-power, Wi-Fi connectivity kits have already been shipped to 900 customers, and products using the ZeroG "Wi-Fi I/O" have now gone into production, beating the typical 12-18 month development cycle.

The new development kit software, version 5.2, provides customers with more options to increase throughput and usability. The development kit supports Microchip's new PIC32MX5, 6, and 7 32-bit microcontroller families, also announced, allowing customers to dynamically switch between Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity.

In addition, the upgrades give designers an easier way to build systems with multiple connectivity protocols, and offer browser-based configuration of Wi-Fi network access.

"There was strong customer interest in a low-power Wi-Fi solution for our PIC microcontrollers, and orders of the development kit have exceeded our expectations," said Rodger Richey, director of applications at Microchip Technology. "To continue delivering a superior product, and based on customer feedback, ZeroG Wireless and Microchip have increased the throughput, and made a number of usability enhancements to the software."

"Leveraging the newly released PIC32 MCU families allows customers to dynamically switch between Ethernet and Wi-Fi, which really brings a lot of flexibility to systems designers creating products that can easily move between wired and wireless networks," said Tim Colleran, vice president of marketing, ZeroG Wireless.
Availability and Pricing

Version 5.2 of the development kit software is available at http://www.microchip.com/Wireless. For existing customers, it is a no-cost upgrade. New customers have a choice of development tools and kits that start at $69.