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