Atmel introduces Powerline Carrier Solutions for Smart Energy Applications

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Atmel Corporation, a firm providing microcontroller (MCU) and touch solutions, will introduce two Power-line Communication (G3- PLC) solutions.

The solutions compliant with the G3-PLC specification will be launched at the European Utility Week 2014 to be held November 4-6 in Amsterdam.

The Atmel G3-PLC products include the SAM4CP16C System-on-Chip (SoC) and ATPL250A modem that are pin-compatible with PRIME-compliant members of the Atmel | SMART portfolio of energy metering solutions already in production.

The SoC option, like rest of the SAM4Cx products assembled around a dual-core 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4 design with advanced security, metrology and wireless and power-line communications (PLC) options.

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This unique platform manages OEM’s necessities for flexible system partitioning, lower bill of materials (BOM) and improved time-to-market.

Utilities worldwide require OEMs to meet very high reliability standards at aggressive cost points for smart meters which embed advanced feature sets in connectivity, security and flexibility, said, Colin Barnden, principal analyst, Semicast Research.

In several countries, smart meters to be deployed have to be certified for compliance with the latest specifications including G3-PLC, PRIME and IEEE 802. 15.4g.

Now these smart metering solutions will meet the mandatory standards for evolving criteria based smart metering distributions from a reliability, performance, interoperability and cost perspective.

The new products address the European (CENELEC), American (FCC) and Japanese (ARIB) profiles defined by the G3-PLC Alliance.

Atmel is an active participant in the G3-PLC Alliance certification program, hoping to receive CENELEC certification this November followed by FCC and ARIB band certifications in future.

Major feature of the ATPL250A and SAM4CP16C is an integrated Class-D line driver, which provides high quality signal injection efficiency and thermal characteristics.

This technology will help eliminate reliability problems confronted in the field due to thermal overheating.

In addition, its design software background and tools ensures sharing and re-utilization of this technology for multiple projects which address various connectivity standards by customers.

Sabeena Wahid
editor@greentechlead.com

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