Ember, the ZigBee wireless comms chip firm, is to double the size of its Cambridge-based IC design facility by the end of the year.

The move follows the company's development partnership with STMicroelectronics, which was announced earlier this year.

The US firm’s 11-strong hardware design team has already developed two ICs at the site - including the ZigBee industry's first single chip solution integrating both radio and microcontroller.  Ember is now finalising the specifications for several new IC programs with STMicroelectronics, and actively recruiting digital and analogue engineers for the development phases.

“We expect the UK design centre to be at least 20 strong by the end of 2006,”  said Nick Horne, director of IC Engineering at Ember Europe.  

According to Horne, designing single chip ZigBee transceivers is not a simple design challenge. “Without doubt, ZigBee is the cutting edge of single-chip wireless,” said Horne.

Those challenges include the use of fine geometry semiconductor fabrication processes in a way that does not degrade radio performance, obtaining high radio sensitivity in close proximity to high clock rate digital circuits, and optimising operating modes and power management for battery operation.

Horne notes the considerable opportunity that ZigBee IC design holds for the rapid career progression of young engineers. “At the moment, we have more opportunities than engineers. The right staff have ample chance not only to exploit their core skill of digital or analogue circuit design, but also to get involved with the wider mixed-signal IC team to integrate the various circuit elements, to verify and test the design, and bring the complete solution to market,” he said.

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