BusinessWire
April 02, 2007 05:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time

Airbee Wireless Delivers ZigBee-Ready Solutions Based on Atmel Platform

Airbee Enables Atmel®’s AVR® Platform for Integrators and OEMs Looking for Turnkey ZigBee Products

ROCKVILLE, Md. & SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Airbee Wireless (ABEW) today announced that their ZNS 2006 ZigBee protocol stack has been ported to Atmel®’s AVR® microcontroller for ZigBee™ applications. ZigBee platform certification is under way at National Technical Systems, one of the test houses contracted by the ZigBee Alliance.

Airbee and Atmel will further integrate and bundle Atmel’s hardware solution, Airbee’s ZNS 2006 ZigBee certified protocol stack and Airbee’s ZNS Pro ZigBee protocol stack – enabling customers to quickly and easily integrate and deploy the Atmel wireless networking platform with ZigBee networks.

Airbee’s ZNS 2006 has already been certified on other platforms and has also received certification on its ZNS 2004 protocol stack. The port to Atmel platform is significant for ZigBee developers because it brings a host of benefits.

Having a certified protocol stack on the AVR solution ensures interoperability with other ZigBee products. OEMs developing with Airbee’s ZNS 2006 protocol stack software and Atmel’s AVR hardware solution can now be confident that their products are interoperable with other ZigBee certified platforms, thereby allowing a single, solid network for the monitoring and collection of data for all applications on the network.

As the deployment of ZigBee technology rapidly increases in the commercial and industrial automation markets, the partnership between Atmel and Airbee will further promote the adoption of cost-effective and interoperable ZigBee networks.

Magnus Pedersen, Director AVR Marketing of Atmel, commented, “This collaboration provides integrators and OEMs with the ability to effectively juggle the various factors of cost, essential features and hardware platform technical considerations. Airbee’s embedded software outlines a direct path for end-product certification and enables designers to bring products to market without additional delays. Delivering on our commitment to serve the emerging ZigBee industry, we jointly enable our mutual customers to shorten time-to-market and customize specific product features to best fit their wireless connectivity needs.”

“The popularity of the AVR microcontroller made it important for us to offer a ZigBee certified solution on an Atmel silicon platform. By partnering with Atmel, we now have a new platform for ZigBee integrators who wish to implement ZigBee technology. They can use Airbee software along with the latest Atmel microcontrollers to bring end products to market quickly knowing we are interoperable and certified. Airbee is working hard to put partnerships in place that allow companies to select their preferred hardware manufacturer,” said Raj Sundaresan, CEO of Airbee Wireless.

As a provider of the industry’s premier hardware-independent software products, Airbee’s intelligent networking solutions adhere to ZigBee specifications. Airbee-ZNS™ provides a platform that delivers the most choice without compromising quality. Airbee’s ZNS ZigBee-2006 and ZNS ZigBee-PRO compliant protocol stack software is designed for maximum adaptability and portability on any microcontroller and IEEE 802.15.4 radio solution. The highly-efficient Airbee ZNS-2006 software stack incorporates enhancements for performance and reliability considerations that enable OEMs to develop products with ease-of-use and with the support of best-in-class development tools for real world deployments.

Atmel’s AVR Z-Link® offers a fast core and a feature-rich set of peripherals. The Atmel ATmega 1281 is a low-power, CMOS microcontroller that provides a highly flexible and cost-effective solution for many embedded control applications. This high-performance microcontroller combines an 8-bit RISC CPU with In-System Self-Programmable Flash on a monolithic chip. Allowing the system designer to optimize power consumption versus processing speed, the ATmega 1281 executes powerful instructions in a single clock cycle achieving throughputs approaching 1 MIPS per MHz. The ATmega 1281 features: 128K bytes self-programming Flash program memory, 8K bytes SRAM, 4K bytes EEPROM, 54 general purpose I/O lines, 32 general purpose working registers, an 8-channel 10-bit A/D converter and a JTAG interface for on-chip-debug.

About Airbee Wireless Products

Airbee has created a full spectrum of product offerings tailored to meet the particular requirements from early product development through productization, certification, and production ramp-up. The company’s product offering leverages an extensive background as a short-range wireless and Low-Power mesh networking pioneer, along with the expertise of the industry’s broadest and deepest development team. Airbee provides a portfolio of ZigBee-ready networking software for any number of 802.15.4 radio/microcontroller combinations used in ZigBee networks. Designed and engineered to comply with ZigBee / IEEE 802.15.4 global standards, Airbee’s embedded software offers affordability, a streamlined path for end-product certification, shortened time to market, and the flexibility to tailor specific product features within a comprehensive software environment.

About Airbee Wireless

Airbee Wireless is a pioneer and the leading expert in short-range wireless and low-power wireless mesh networking, as well as the last remaining independent software provider in this market segment. Airbee provides OEM developers a unique blend of proven standards-compliant software solutions, hardware-independent implementation alternatives and the hands-on assistance to assure product success. Airbee is one of the first companies to have a software platform certified to the most current ZigBee 2006 standards and has also been selected as one of the “Golden Units” for ZigBee Pro, which is the latest ZigBee specification. For more information, please visit www.airbeewireless.com.

About ZigBee: Wireless Control That Simply Works

The ZigBee Alliance is an association of companies working together to enable reliable, cost effective, low-power, wirelessly networked, monitoring and control products based on an open global standard. The ZigBee Alliance membership comprises technology providers and original equipment manufacturers worldwide. Membership is open to all.

Additional information can be found at www.zigbee.org.