Freescale strengthens RF leadership in CE with new device family

SHANGHAI, CHINA: As consumer demands for more integrated home entertainment devices and hidden peripherals increase, manufacturers of radio frequency (RF)-based devices are designing better performing, more efficient and less expensive solutions to meet that demand.

In order to address this technology need, Freescale Semiconductor, the leading supplier of IEEE® 802.15.4 chipsets, today announced the MC1323x system-on-chip device family for ZigBee RF4CE consumer electronics.

Freescale’s MC1323x device family provides a comprehensive, highly integrated solution with premier processing capabilities and minimal power consumption. The MC1323x family features an 8-bit HCS08 microcontroller, a fully compliant IEEE 802.15.4 transceiver, flash memory, RAM and high-performance peripherals specifically selected and optimized for today’s consumer electronic devices.

The new family will allow customers to directly support and use legacy infrared (IR) functions and devices in addition to RF control and monitoring. The family will initially consist of three devices that vary by memory sizes up to 128K flash and 8K RAM and the addition of a USB 2.0 peripheral.

Due to its unique combination of monitoring and control features, the MC1323x family is also well-suited for general market applications, such as remote controls, TVs, set top boxes, portable blood pressure monitors, weight scales and appliances.

“We worked directly with our customer manufacturers to develop the MC1323x as a solution that provides high-performance functionality and industry leading integration at a cost-effective price point,” said Reza Kazerounian, senior vice president and general manager of Freescale’s Microcontroller Solutions Group.

"We’ve seen high demand for our IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee device families as wireless applications continue their rapid growth in areas such as home entertainment control, healthcare and medical monitoring, and residential applications.”

“With the insurgence of wall mounted televisions and the consumer trend of clean living room design by hiding the clutter of cables from set top boxes, Blu-ray players and audio receivers, ZigBee RF4CE is gaining market share in the consumer electronics industry,” said Bas Driesen, RF4CE Steering Committee chairman.

“Freescale has been instrumental in creating and driving RF4CE adoption and the development of the MC1323x family further strengthens the RF4CE marketplace.”

Freescale’s portfolio of ZigBee RF4CE system-on-chip products is based on IEEE 802.15.4 technology, known for its benefits in the areas of cost, performance and efficiency for real-time remote monitoring and control. ZigBee RF4CE technology provides radio-frequency communications, improves speed, reliability, interference avoidance and enables greater flexibility for devices to operate from longer distances.

It removes the line-of-sight and field-of-vision barriers in today's infrared (IR) applications. With its two-way communication, ZigBee RF4CE opens the door to a whole new set of capabilities and consumer experiences. The ZigBee RF4CE specification is designed for a wide range of consumer electronic products, including home entertainment and input devices.

Freescale also offers software, reference designs and development kits for several different hardware platforms to use in evaluating the MC1323x system-on-chip, allowing developers to select hardware and software platforms that best meet their needs.

The MC13233C is currently available for customer sampling.