Ember's latest ZigBee chip family is based on an ARM Cortex-M3 processor and is aimed squarely at smart meter designs.
ZigBee looks like it will be the European industrial standard for in-the-home wireless links to smart meters.
The European Smart Metering Industry Group (ESMIG) is working with the ZigBee Alliance to define interoperable communications standards for smart metering technology across the European Union (EU).
The EM351 integrates an ARM Cortex-M3 processor, 2.4GHz IEEE 802.15.4 RF transceiver, 128kbye flash, 12kbyte RAM and the EmberZNet PRO network protocol stack which supports the ZigBee PRO feature set.
There is also a version, the EM357, with additional memory up to 192kbyte flash.
According to Ember, the attraction of the Cortex-M3 processor is its code density, performance and system response to interrupts.
The chips are supported by the EmberZNet PRO ZigBee-compliant stack. The stack supports the ZigBee PRO feature set including the ZigBee smart energy and home automation profiles.
See: Anatomy of a smart meter