Jennic, the ZigBee wireless comms IC company, is claiming an industry first with a software stack supporting Internet Protocol networking for the low power wireless comms standard.

“The extension into low power wireless is a logical progression, and will undoubtedly give rise to a wealth of applications that were previously unrealisable,” said Jennic’s CEO, Jim Lindop.

“Developers will be able to use their knowledge of IP to build clusters of wireless nodes connected to wired IP infrastructure,” said Lindop.

The combination of the IP networking stack (version 6) with the IEEE802.15.4 standard, used by ZigBee, has its own standard definition known as 6LoWPAN.

“This software and their support shows that the concept of embedded IP and IP based wireless sensors and controllers is here and available now.  I look forward to Jennic's further participation in and support of true open and international standards such as the IETF 6LoWPAN protocol,” said Geoff Mulligan, chair of the 6LoWPAN Working Group.

The aim is to provide very low power wireless, IP-enabled networking to products such as heating controls, security sensors and patient monitoring equipment.

The stack supports simple star networks, or can be run on top of the stable and field-proven JenNet stack that provides self-healing cluster tree networking capability, with automatic route formation and repair.

Jennic’s 6LoWPAN stack runs on their JN5139 32-bit wireless microcontroller and wireless modules.

The microcontroller features memory resources of 192kbyte of ROM and 96kbyte of RAM for the IEEE802.15.4 MAC; 6LoWPAN and JenNet stacks; and application software.

The integrated 2.4GHz, IEEE802.15.4-based transceiver supports a 100dB link for communication over 30-50m distances indoors as well as secure 128-bit AES encryption.

The Jennic 6LoWPAN stack is sampling, with general availability of a 6LoWPAN evaluation kit planned for the third quarter.