Renesas Technology licenses Yitran’s High Speed PLC technology

Addressing smart metering, smart home and street lighting applications, the high data rate solution builds on the already established and highly robust, narrowband differential code shift keying (DCSK) solution which is installed in many metering applications around the world, offering backward compatibility to already installed lower data rate solutions.

With communications speeds of up to 150kbps in FCC bands, the technology is compliant to different frequency band regulations such as Cenelec, FCC and ARIB. It will be uniquely available from at least two interoperable semiconductor vendors from the beginning. The Renesas implementation is based on its powerful, world acclaimed M16C MCU core, integrating 256KB flash memory with 24KB RAM, as well as a rich peripheral set including transceiver and AFE to achieve an optimised system cost.

Renesas has more than 10 years of PLC communications experience mainly focusing on low speed operation below 450kHz. The current product uses Yitran’s DCSK technology, which has been proven to be the most robust in the world. Offering a signal to noise ratio of -6dB with zero Packet Error Rate (PER), the technology has been selected by the HomePlug Alliance as the baseline technology for their HomePlug Command and Control specification (an open and recognised global standard).

Coupled to Renesas’ popular RUN-M networking layer, which has been designed specifically for AMR/AMM applications, there are already more than a quarter of a million installations in metering networks around the world.

According to Renesas’ global segment leader for PLC communications, Christos Aslanidis, “the Renesas PLC solution offers everything required by leading utility companies – open standards (through HomePlug), increased data rate (up to 150kbps) with backward compatibility to ensure interoperability with established installations, lowest cost devices and solutions, silicon already available from two interoperable sources and technology which is completely proven in the field.”