Atmel targets smart energy, building and home automation with BitCloud Profile Suite

ESC 2010; SAN JOSE, USA: Atmel Corp., a leader in MCU and touch solutions, announced the availability of Atmel BitCloud Profile Suite, a ready-to-use framework for rapid development of ZigBee-certified applications.

The suite includes a complete set of fully functional reference implementations of the ZigBee Application Profiles for ZigBee Smart Energy (ZSE), ZigBee Building Automation (ZBA) and ZigBee Home Automation (ZHA).

Atmel is also introducing the RZ600 evaluation kit, a tool accompanying BitCloud Profile Suite, and enables designers to prototype, develop and deploy ZigBee standards-compliant wireless applications for smart energy, home automation and building automation markets operating in both in 2.4GHz and the regional 700/800/900 MHz frequency bands.

The easy-to-use Atmel RZ600 development kit offers designers the flexibility to combine any Atmel RF transceiver with an Atmel microcontroller. The kit showcases Atmel's unique line-up of low power and high RF performance transceivers, which offer superior battery life for portable applications and extended range for robust connection.

When used with the free and certified BitCloud Profile Suite, RZ600 will help reduce system engineering design costs and slash time to market for a range of standards-compliant wireless products. RZ600 offers engineers the flexibility to design products for the 2.4 GHz IEEE 802.15.4-compliant markets including smart energy, building and home automation.

In addition to these markets, the Atmel transceivers enable designers to develop applications in the proprietary wireless application space for consumer products including toys, remote controls, walkie talkies and audio/video transfer applications.

"Atmel is committed to the growing ZigBee markets," said Magnus Pedersen, Product Marketing Director of MCU Wireless Solutions of Atmel. "By offering an easy-to-use development solution, designers can now have the flexibility to either design within the IEEE 802.15.4 standard or in proprietary wireless networks. We continue to offer solutions for the changing ZigBee markets."

The Atmel RZ600 includes radio extender boards, USB-to-10-pin-wireless dongles, and IEEE-802.15.4-compliant RF transceivers to support the worldwide 2.4GHz and the regional 700/800/900 MHz frequency bands. The Atmel BitCloud Profile Suite enables engineers to develop, debug and connect to wireless networks with radio extender boards that can be connected to Atmel evaluation boards.

These evaluation boards include the Atmel STK600 and the EVK1105 for wireless applications with an 8- or 32-bit AVR MCU and with the Atmel SAMx-EK wireless application development with an Atmel ARM-based MCU (with an ARM7 or Cortex core) and are combined with the latest ZSE 1.1 standard software.