2007 Short-Range Wireless Preliminary Conference Program Announced!
Taking place September 25-26 in Denver, Colorado, the 2007 Short-Range Wireless Conference will highlight the most recent advancements in short-range wireless standards, applications & technology.   The two-day technical event will again be co-located with the 2007 Antenna Systems Conference. Attendees will have access to both conference programs (more than 40 technical sessions), the combined exhibit hall and all networking opportunities.

New sessions just announced!

• Overcoming System Design Challenges for UWB-Based PAN Connectivity
   Chet Babla, Sr. Product Marketing Manager, Artimi

• WiMedia: The Ultra-Platform for Wireless Multimedia
   Stephen Wood, President, WiMedia Alliance (Technology Strategist - Intel)

• Uniting the Wireless PAN with Bluetooth Technology
   Dr. Mike Foley, Executive Director, Bluetooth SIG, Inc.

• Optimal Wi-Fi Channel Selection
   Ryan Woodings, CEO & Chief Geek, MetaGeek

• Ubiquitous RFID: It's Not Just For Walmart Anymore
   Sayan Chakraborty, CTO, SkyeTek

• Antenna Propagation Considerations for RFID Systems
   Dr. Warren Stutzman, Founding Director, Virginia Tech Antenna Group

• Effective Analysis of RFID Systems by Means of a Combined 3-D Circuit Level Simulation
 Jingsong Wang, Sr. Applications Engineer, CST of America, Inc.

For more program details visit www.antennasonline.com/ast07_program.html

Research director Stuart Carlaw said that, "We are on the cusp of a high level of integration activity, as silicon vendors look to add value to their offerings, diversify and differentiate themselves in what are increasingly competitive markets." He goes on to add, "Precedents for integration activity can be seen in Broadcom's recent announcement of its BCM4325, which incorporates Bluetooth, FM radio and Wi-Fi in a single IC, as well as in CSR's purchase of NordNav and Cambridge Positioning Systems in order to realize the goal of producing a combined GPS/Bluetooth IC."

Integration is a vital tool that silicon vendors will use to maintain margins in markets where OEMs continue to squeeze every last cent out of their suppliers. It also allows vendors to meet ever stricter OEM requirements for power saving and board space. There is a distinct possibility that the trend towards integration will significantly alter the competitive silicon supplier landscape.

For more information visit www.abiresearch.com. 

Frost & Sullivan recently selected Zensys, Inc. as the recipient of the 2006 Frost & Sullivan Award for Technology Innovation in recognition of the company’s development of Z-Wave, a proven, affordable and interoperable, RF based, wireless mesh networking technology designed for controlling all of the devices in your home.

“Z-Wave technology transforms any device in your home into an intelligent networkable product that can be closely monitored and controlled via wireless communication,” explains Frost & Sullivan Industry Manager Sivakumar Muthuramalingam. “Z-Wave provides mass-market consumers with reliable, easy-to-use home control that facilitates safety, comfort and convenience at an affordable price.”

This interoperable, short-range wireless mesh network communications technology enables wireless control of a wide rray of home devices including lighting, appliances, HVAC, entertainment, healthcare, access and security systems and more.

Z-Wave technology enables improved coverage and reliability of large residences covering more than 10,000 sq. ft. without requiring 'line of sight' to deliver the signal. With a capacity of up to 232 devices,    Z-Wave solutions are well suited for considerably large homes.

For more information visit www.zen-sys.com.

Don't miss Zensys's presentation at the Short Range Wireless Conference! Click Here to preview.

Clasma Events Inc., the company behind BuilConn, M2M Expo, Wi-tivity, GridWise Expo and the ibX Forum, has introduced a new event: ZigBee Expo. ZigBee Expo is endorsed by the ZigBee Alliance and focuses on cost-effective, low-power, wirelessly networked, monitoring and control products and solutions used in homes, commercial buildings and industrials plants around the world.

ZigBee Expo will be part of the ConnectivityWeek conference series held annually in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific. Members of the ZigBee Alliance will run a conference track during ConnectivityWeek covering the technology and its application in commercial and residential buildings.

For more information visit www.zigbeeexpo.com.

Tendril’s software will be fully integrated with TI’s ZigBee platform.

“Customers that require short time-to-market can utilize the power of Tendril’s software to accelerate the process of building, deploying and managing ZigBee applications. Our software complements TI’s products for ZigBee applications in areas such as energy management and conservation, and residential and building automation,” said Adrian Tuck, CEO of Tendril. “TI customers can dramatically simplify and shorten the development and deployment cycle for their ZigBee projects by utilizing the Tendril Network Operating Platform.”

The Tendril Network Operating Platform is the first extensible software platform that helps manufacturers and integrators quickly build ZigBee applications, effectively deploy them in the field, and easily manage them when operational. The Tendril Network Operating Platform eliminates the burden of bringing ZigBee applications to market and to large-scale production rollouts – allowing users to focus on specific ZigBee applications and the deployment, management and monitoring of their network.

For more information visit www.tendrilinc.com.

Alereon, with its Wireless-on-the-Go solution, is the only UWB Company offering embedded device-to-device connectivity via Certified Wireless USB from the USB-Implementers. Wireless-on-the-Go enables users to wirelessly connect two handheld devices, such as digital cameras or camera phones, to swap data files over a short distance without eating up large chunks of battery life. Alereon's solutions use limited SoC processing power and they work in conjunction with almost any operating system, including NetBSD for printers, microITRON for cameras, Windows Mobile 5 for phones and Embedded Linux for HDTVs. 

For more information visit www.alereon.com.

Crossbow Introduces Powerful Mote Platform for Wireless Sensor Network Research

Crossbow Technology, Inc. has introduced the Crossbow Imote2, its next generation hardware platform for wireless sensor network research and development. The Crossbow Imote2 enables a new level of processing performance for wireless sensor networks and is a commercial release of the Intel Mote 2 design licensed from Intel Corporation.

Integrating a high performance, low power, PXA271 Intel XScale processor and a 802.15.4 radio with a built in 2.4 GHz antenna, the Imote2 provides a high performance platform for advanced, compute intensive wireless sensor network applications such as digital imaging and industrial vibration monitoring.

The PXA271 processor on the Imote2 can be configured to support a low voltage (0.85V), low frequency (13 MHz) mode as well as other scalable processing modes of up to 416 MHz. The 256 KB of on-chip

SRAM, 32 MB of SDRAM and 32MB of FLASH memory provide several orders of magnitude more resources for memory intensive applications than previous WSN hardware platforms. Power consumption

is extremely low making this platform well suited for demanding but battery powered applications.

“Next generation modules for the wireless sensor market like the Imote2 will be especially important for applications where a high performance sensor node must be combined with low-power operation and a low duty cycle to achieve long life” said Harry Forbes, senior analyst, ARC Advisory Group. “One example of such an application in manufacturing is machine condition monitoring. A product like the Imote2 could perform complete machine analytics by itself, while using its wireless sensor network strictly for reporting the results of its analysis.”

Several I/O and sensor interfaces on the board allow the development and integration of sensor boards that leverage the full capabilities of the Imote2, making it a versatile and flexible platform for a broad range of applications, including imaging, acoustics, seismic and vibration based signal processing. The 802.15.4 standard compliant radio supports a 250kb/s data rate with 16 channels in the 2.4 GHz band. With the integrated 2.4 GHz surface mount antenna, a typical range of 100 feet (30m) is achieved. For longer range requirements an external antenna can be used via an optional SMA connector. Currently, the Imote2 is supported by several operating systems including TinyOS 1.1, TinyOS 2.0, SOS and Linux.

For more information visit www.xbow.com.

WiQuest’s leadership in certifications simplifies and shortens the process for customers to gain approvals on their consumer products. The Company is the leader in the number of products that have received approval by the FCC including the world’s first notebook PC incorporating ultrawideband, as announced by Toshiba, and WiQuest’s own wireless USB Adapter and 4-port Hub. WiQuest’s WQST100 Family chipset has also been granted WiMedia PHY registration.

For more information visit www.wiquest.com.

The contract represents a strategic win for Sirit's Mobile NFC Platform (Sirit MNP) software and related NFC engineering services, which are designed to help OEMs shorten their development cycles and time to market for NFC-enabled mobile handsets.

NFC technology is a short range wireless connectivity method, co-invented by NXP, and poised to become a standard feature on mobile phones. NFC-enabled mobile phones are expected to drive revolutionary applications (e.g. mobile payments, ticketing, etc.), create new revenue streams, and provide differentiation for mobile handsets.

Sirit's MNP is a package of Java-based embedded software stacks and specifications (JSRs) (powered by NXP Software's J-Ware NFC SW) that provide mobile phones with a rich set of NFC functionality and an environment to which mobile applications can be easily integrated. KWC's forthcoming NFC mobile handsets will be deployed with Sirit's MNP.

For more information visit www.sirit.com.

Don't miss Sirit's presentation at the Short Range Wireless Conference! Click Here to preview.

The majority of ZigBee modules on the market today feature chip antennas. Such modules already contain all necessary RF design so that no RF expertise is needed to integrate them. The chip antenna design normally requires a device called 'balun' (BALanced UNbalanced). The balun serves to interface a single-ended antenna to a balanced input/output. As a trade-off, however, the balun causes loss of antenna gain (power). The new dual chip antenna design eliminates the need for a balun altogether, without adding to the overall Bill of Materials (BOM). The new antenna design is also compact. The module's footprint of only 13.5mm x 24mm (0.53" x 0.95") is among the smallest on the market.

"It was a challenging task that called for an unorthodox solution. How do you gain few extra dB without increasing the BOM?" said Mr. Alexey Nazarov, the Product Manager of MeshNetics. "We had to take a critical look at the conventional wisdom of using balun. The next step was to redesign the antenna in order to compensate for the absence of balun. There was no ready solution available, so we created the new design from scratch."

The new module will complement the currently offered balanced RF output version in the family of the ZigBit compact modules, based on Atmel ATmega 1281v MCU and AT86RF230 RF transceiver. All new ZigBee/802.15.4 modules will come bundled with eZeeNet stack firmware that enables the module-based wireless sensor devices to form self-healing, self-organizing mesh networks. The Evaluation Kits for the new modules include evaluation boards, software, accessories and technical support over e-mail.

For more information visit www.meshnetics.com.

Don't miss Meshnetics's presentation at the Short Range Wireless Conference! Click Here to preview.

May 2007
6-9 - UTC Telecom, Austin, Texas

15-17 - EDS Show, Las Vegas, Nevada

20-25 - Interop, Las Vegas, Nevada

21-23 - Military Satellites, Arlington, Virg.

22-24 - Broadband Wireless World at Interop, Las Vegas, Nevada

29-31 - WiMAX World Europe, Austria

For more information on advertising in the Short Range Wireless e-Report,
contact Karen Poulson at 800-803-9488 ext 106.

Submit editorial content to Jeremy Martin at 720-528-3770 x118.

To be removed from this distribution list please click here
To change the status of any contact information, call 720-528-3770.