Freescale Demonstrates Fastest Dual-Network Functionality for ZigBee Networks and Smart Energy Systems

The dual-PAN capability in Freescale’s Kinetis KW20 wireless microcontroller allows a single device to seamlessly connect and actively participate in two separate networks.

The ARM CortexTM-M4-based KW20 wireless MCU has up to 512 KB of flash and 64 KB of SRAM, providing enough memory to run both network protocol stacks on a single device and eliminating the need for a second MCU.

“Freescale recognizes the need to support multiple ZigBee networks and even different versions of protocols within a small area,” said Bruno Baylac, director and general manager of Freescale’s Metering, Medical & Connectivity business unit. “We’re helping our customers adapt to multiple scenarios in this fluid environment with the lowest cost and shortest development time. Our hardware implementation is less complex than software-only implementations, while significantly improving the performance and robustness of the end product.”

Freescale’s distinctive hardware implementation maintains key network information for two networks, including the PAN ID, short and long network addresses and the RF channel, allowing the device to rapidly change between networks in as little as 64 uS. This results in a 5x performance improvement over software implementations and significantly reduces network traffic and latency while lowering overall power consumption. In addition, the KW20 can function as a coordinator, a router or an end device on each network. If both networks are operating on the same RF channel, then the KW20 can filter network information on the fly, completely eliminating the need to switch between networks.

Freescale has a number of innovative ZigBee solutions and its dual-PAN feature in the Kinetis KW20 family is another great addition, said Bob Heile, chairman of the ZigBee Alliance. With the growing demand for ZigBee Certified products, Freescale’s KW20 will help meet this need.”

For ultimate flexibility, Freescale also offers an individual IEEE 802.15.4 radio transceiver with the same high-performance characteristic as the radio inside the KW20, including dual-PAN capability. This radio device, the MC13242, can be paired with any of the vast selection of Kinetis 32-bit MCUs.

Dual-PAN functionality will be supported in Freecale’s ZigBee protocol software and sample applications for the MC13242 and KW20 wireless MCUs, including the forthcoming ZigBee IP stack and ZigBee Smart Energy 2.0 standard.