Teridian's new metering chips feature innovative isolated sensing technology

IRVINE, USA: Teridian Semiconductor has begun sampling its fourth generation residential smart metering ICs.

The new product family includes the 71M6541x and 71M6xx1 and features digitally isolated current sensors based on the company's proprietary MicroDAA isolation technology. The new 71M6541x, as a stand-alone meter SoC for single element meters, offers significantly reduced power consumption and enhanced accuracy.

The 71M6xx1 isolated sensor IC eliminates current transformer and associated copper wiring in 2-element residential meters, with up to class 0.2 accuracy (ANSI 200A). The result is up to 25 percent reduction in bill of materials (BOM) costs for residential applications.

The announcement of Teridian's new product line comes at the onset of major green initiatives and plans by the US, Chinese and European governments to accelerate deployment of smart metering solutions. The new smart metering product family addresses the needs of this dynamic market and was developed in response to customer demand for advanced products at a lower cost point.

Teridian's large portfolio of residential, commercial and industrial energy metering and measurement devices provides a highly accurate, reliable and cost-effective alternative to multi-chip implementations and features better than 0.1 percent accuracy over 2000:1 dynamic range and a unique 32-bit programmable metrology engine, which can be adapted to meet changing utility requirements.

"By incorporating our proprietary isolation technology into our high performance metering solutions we have successfully overcome traditional barriers associated with the use of resistive shunts in multi-phase applications. Hence, we're enabling our customers to reduce their product's form factor, copper content and magnetic tamper susceptibility, while preserving, and in some cases improving, accuracy," said Kourosh Boutorabi, vice president and general manager, Teridian Semiconductor Advanced Metering Infrastructure.

"This solution is groundbreaking in the sense that until now, a technically and commercially viable alternative to current transformers has never been available to metering OEMs."

Teridian's metering devices are in use today by more than 50 metering manufacturers and on more than 100 metering platforms. To date, Teridian has shipped in excess of 40 million units and has the largest market share of SoC metering devices. In April of last year, Teridian's 71M653x family of metering products was named innovative technology of the year in the semiconductor category from the Orange County, Calif. region of TechAmerica.